Forsaken
by The Urban Spaceman
Summary: "You can't outrun your past." Before Meg became a demon, she was a jaded young woman with an acid tongue and a troubled past. Never destined for a life of greatness, a series of seemingly chance events and an encounter with an enigmatic demon lead her into the heart of darkness itself.
1. Come What May

Forsaken

_1. Come What May_

The young woman stood in the centre of the crowd. Her long blonde hair, left loose and tending to curl languidly down her back, blew gently at the tug of the breeze. Her eyes, a beautiful shade of blue, were wide, full of hope and excitement as she watched the approaching man. In her eagerness, her fingers gripped the material of her plain white dress, toying with it briefly before she regained her composure, affecting a look of serenity. A smile played across her lips, mirroring the joyous mood portrayed by her eyes. This was her moment. Today she was the Queen. And when the man with the wreath of flowers reached her, she curtseyed low, allowing him to place the crown of nature upon her golden head. Smiling, she stood up, and surveyed her subjects.

"Today is the first day of summer," she said, her voice as sweet as a nightingale's call. "A time for growth and prosperity. Let no man work this day, nor any child attend his lessons. Today we celebrate life, the victory of the sun over winter's harsh grip, and the beginning of the season of plenty. Let us eat, drink, sing and dance for as long as the sun graces the sky. Let the celebrations commence!"

Instruments were brandished from the musicians in the crowd. Flautists and pipers began to blow, the sound of wind-made music filling the air, each tune different, each complimenting the others in some way that could not be described. Meanwhile, a mandolin player strolled through the crowd which was slowly starting to disperse, lazily plucking the strings of his well-crafted instrument.

A group of young women clustered around the May Queen. They, with their unbound hair and cheeks made more rosy by the rouge painted on them, were all candidates for next year's festival, and they fawned over the May Queen, offering to serve her, to fetch her a drink, or a favoured treat, as if she was the Virgin Queen herself.

As Meg watched them flapping and fawning, she snapped open her fan with a brief flick of her wrist and used the delicate, lace-trimmed accessory to blow a little cool air across her face. Inside her stomach was a familiar prickly feeling; not anger, but irritation. Many things irritated her. Today it was the heat, which had come early to London for once, and the puerile toadying of the young women as they attempted to curry favour with the Queen.

Beside Meg, another woman stood, a wistful look in her doe-brown eyes. She sighed as she watched the Queen, and then turned to her companion, not even bothering to hide the smile that graced her rouged lips.

"She is so beautiful, isn't she?"

Meg shrugged, the cambric-slashed shoulders of her long green linen dress rising almost to her ears. "I suppose. If barely-dressed virgins are your thing, of course."

The woman ignored her tone, and gave another sigh. "When I was young, I used to dream of being the May Queen. Every year I would come to the May Festival and watch from the edge of the crowd as the Queen was crowned. And every year I saw my own face on hers. 'Soon,' I would tell myself. I knew it would make my mother so proud, if I was chosen."

"I envy you, Clara," Meg admitted. "I would have given anything to have such innocent dreams, when I was young."

"Why? What did you dream of?"

"I used to dream that I would wake up and find my father dead in his bed. Or that I would come home from working at the docks and find my mother standing in the kitchen, cooking my favourite stew, just like old times."

Clara offered her a genuine look of sympathy. "I would give you my childhood dreams, if I could."

Meg smiled. Clara was the most selfless person she had ever known, and she knew that her friend sincerely meant every word she spoke.

"I know," she replied. "But enough of my melancholy. You heard the Queen; today we are to celebrate. What should we do first?"

"Oh, I would love to see a play!" A girlish excitement spread across Clara's face, like the morning sun spreading across an open field. Clara loved plays, and had once confided that it was her greatest wish to visit the Globe Theatre, to watch the actors upon the stage. Meg cared little for plays – they were all foolish make-believe, and she had little patience for such frivolities – but she would endure one, if it meant her friend's happiness. "I hear there's a troupe of actors at the stage in the Grey Mare's Inn-yard," Clara continued.

"You want to return to the city so soon?" Meg gestured around at the open field, where dozens of stalls had been set up, selling everything from small bags of candied local delicacies to exotic perfumes and ornate jewelry. "The sun is shining, the music is playing, and the air is fresh. Wouldn't you rather spend a little more time out here, away from the reek of the Thames and the tanner's yard?"

"I suppose it would be nice to look at some of the stalls," Clara admitted. "The actors will be there until night-fall, so there's no real hurry."

"Good."

She linked arms with her friend and they set off through the crowd, dodging the children who raced around shrieking happily with bags of sweets in their hands. The air was full of excitement, but there was also a sense of relaxation and fun, and Meg found it hard to nurture the prickly feeling within her stomach. Very soon it was gone entirely, and she found herself smiling as she listened to the pipers playing their tunes. Even when she saw some of the young women with their loose hair hurrying to and fro, no doubt on errands for the May Queen, she couldn't find it within herself to be irritated with them.

"Sometimes, I wish I could wear my hair like that," Clara said, her eyes following one of the young women. Her raven-black hair, like Meg's light-brown hair, was pulled into an elaborate chignon at the back of her head, in stark contrast to the young unmarried women who could leave their hair loose, and the older, married women who wore their hair frizzed in homage to the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth.

"It's just hair," Meg said in a dismissive tone. She didn't see why women made such a big deal about it; when she was a child, forced to work at the docks by her lazy, alcoholic father, her hair had been cut short, so she could pass as a boy. Only when her body had started to develop curves had that disguise failed. And when her curves had continued to grow, her father had pushed her into a new line of work. One which made wading through fish-guts and seaweed seem like the grandest job in the world.

"Oh, I know. But it's not the hair I'm thinking of, but of simpler, more innocent times. It's not so much the hair, as the statement. 'I am pure and unmarried.' That's what the hair would say, if it could speak."

Meg did not reply. Times had never been simpler, and they had never been innocent. Winter flu had taken her mother's life when Meg was barely seven years old, and now all she had of the woman were hazy memories of a smiling face and bowls of hot stew during cold nights. With Mother gone, Meg had been forced to play surrogate-mother to her younger sister, Anne. Her father had worked in an abattoir, but he sometimes drank so much that he failed to wake the next morning for work, and the family often went weeks without income.

That was when her Father had cut off Meg's hair, dressed her as a boy, and dragged her down to the docks to work with the other boys, sorting fish, de-scaling and gutting them, cleaning them ready for sale. If she was lucky, some days she'd be allowed to mend nets, which at least meant her clothes stayed a little cleaner. But whether she was mending nets or gutting the day's catch, she could never completely get the smell of fish out of her clothes or her hair. These days she avoided the docks, because a single smell of fish was enough to bring it all rushing back to her; the bone-chilling coldness of winter mornings, the glassy-eyed, open-mouthed stares of the haddock and herring caught in the nets; _You are caught too, just like us_, they seemed to say, mocking her even as she spilled their guts into the stinking Thames.

But that had been long ago. It had been a different Meg who had stood knee-deep in entrails and fish-slime, her skin roughened and cracked by the water and cold. The Meg of today was standing in a field of fresh air, in the company of her best friend, with lively music to listen to. She mentally pushed away memories of family and fish, and looked around for a perfume stall. Though she cared naught for hair, she knew just how powerful perfume could be. The smell of jasmine, or of musk or of honeysuckle, could take the mind of a man to another place, just as the smell of fish took _her_ to another place. But perfume was far more pleasant than fish, and she was starting to run out of her favourite scent.

They passed a Maypole in the centre of the field, and stopped to watch as young girls in their early teen-years skipped around it, each one holding the end of a long green or yellow ribbon that was tied to the top of the pole. Their feet were bare and their long hair flowed behind them, dancing to each skip of the feet.

"I wonder if they would dance around the pole like that if they understood what it symbolised," Meg said.

"Probably," Clara replied. "It's more fun to partake than to watch. I remember dancing around the Maypole many a time, when I was their age. Although one time it had been raining the night before, and all the slugs had come out. I stepped on so many that my feet were black by the time I'd finished dancing."

Meg laughed as the image of her friend stepping on slugs insinuated itself into her mind. Laughter was something that had been absent for much of her youth, and it was one of the reasons she loved Clara so much; the things she said were not intentionally funny, but they usually made Meg smile, and sometimes made her laugh. It was a rare gift to be given.

But by the time the dance around the Maypole had finished, she had forgotten about her humour, and the irritation had returned to the pit of her stomach. She felt a trickle of sweat run down the side of her temple, and she angrily snapped open her fan once more, wafting it in front of her face with more aggression than usual.

"Curse this foul heat!" she said. "I don't remember when it was ever so hot at the beginning of May."

"At least it isn't raining," Clara offered, as she too took out her fan and began attempting to cool herself. Then, without warning, she let out a tiny squeal of excitement. "Oh, Meg, look over there!"

Meg followed her friend's gaze, and saw a stall that was dazzlingly bright. Lying across the dark blue table-cloth, and suspended up the supporting wooden posts, were dozens of hand-mirrors, all of them elaborately decorated around the edges.

"Come on," said Clara, taking her by the arm and dragging her forward with surprising strength, "I simply _have_ to take a closer peek at some of those looking-glasses."

Meg was too hot and flustered to offer more than a feeble protest – _But we can't _afford_ a looking-glass, Clara!_ – and before she knew what was happening she was standing in front of the stall as Clara pronounced happy exclamations over each exquisite mirror. Meg had to admit, they _were_ very fine mirrors, crafted from pewter and silver, and other metals she did not know the names of, all of them inlaid with coloured glass or precious stones.

The stall owner ran his eyes over both women, his gaze stopping momentarily at the top of Meg's corset, where the arch of her breasts could just be seen. Clara was oblivious to the man's glances, her attention completely focused on his wares.

"Women of your beauty deserve nothing less than the finest looking-glasses," he said. "Each of my glasses is hand-crafted, using the latest techniques from France, and will reflect every detail of your radiance."

"Clara," Meg said quietly, trying to whisper to her friend, "I don't think we can afford _anything_ here. These are very fine glasses."

"How kind of you to say, milady," the seller replied with a smile. It was very rude of him to not only listen to her private whisperings, but to comment on them, Meg thought. But she said nothing, because sometimes her tongue got her into trouble.

"Perhaps... perhaps if we pool our money together, Meg, we might afford one," Clara suggested. "My grandmother used to have a hand-mirror much like these, and it was her most treasured possession. I'd have it myself by now, had the creditors not taken it when my father lost our business."

There was such hope and longing in the woman's eyes that Meg could not bring herself to say no. The seller seemed to realise she was wavering, too, and he quickly spoke up.

"I can see you ladies have a fine eye for quality," he said. "I'll make you the deal of the century. I have a mirror with me that was made by one of our apprentices. The glass itself is perfect, but the detail on the back is not quite up to our usual standard. I'd held little hope for selling it, and I didn't want to put it out on display with the others, but if you can tolerate its minor flaws it is yours for half the price of any other mirror here."

"We'd very much like to see it!" Clara said, before Meg could point out that its 'minor flaws' would probably mean it was ugly.

The man pulled out a wooden trunk from beneath his stall and rummaged around inside it for a moment. He came back up with a looking-glass, which he handed over to Clara. She held it up, to look at her own reflection, and then lowered it so she could see the detail on the back. Her happy squeal was all Meg needed to hear; she would soon be half the owner of a looking glass, whether she liked it or not.

"Look at this, Meg," Clara said, passing the mirror to her. "I think it's beautiful."

Meg accepted the glass, and looked down at the ornate back. It was a dull black lacquer, in which was set an iridescent stylised image of an angel. She immediately understood what the seller meant by flaws; the pieces of the angel's wings were not as perfectly symmetrical as they could be, and its halo was a little skewed.

"The material is finest mother of pearl," the seller said, as she ran her fingers over it, feeling the coldness of the shell. "You'll notice how well its lustre catches the light when you turn it, how beautiful the colours change. As I said, there are some tiny flaws, but one must be patient with apprentices. Take a look into the glass, and you'll see that it is the equal of any on my stall."

Obeying, she turned the glass around, holding it up to her face-height. Her own hazel eyes looked back at her, set within her pale face which had been whitened with makeup to give her a flawless complexion. Her cheeks were soft-pink in colour, the rouge she had applied having faded since the morning. Her lips, plump and full, maintained their redness, however; they were her best feature. God had blessed or cursed her with full curves, and her lips had not escaped that fate.

Something reflected in the background caught her attention. There stood beside a fruit-stall a man wearing a long blue cloak trimmed around the edges with red fox fur, which came down to the thighs of his breeches. A thin sword was sheathed at his hip, and the large white ruff at his collar ensured his head was lifted high. He was watching her. Even observing him through the looking-glass, she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

She shivered inside. The fur-trimmed cloak marked him as a member of nobility, so what he was doing at this common festival, and why he was looking at _her_ of all people, she did not know. Moving the mirror a little, pretending to look at herself from a different angle, she squinted at the glass, trying to better make out the features of the man. His eyes, she thought, were brown, dark enough in shade to be indistinguishable from his pupils at this distance. His hair, too, was dark, though not as dark as Clara's ebony locks, and he wore a neatly trimmed beard and moustache on his face. He was very handsome, and the tan of his skin told her he was probably not a local, though he dressed just like a member of the local nobility.

Once more, the prickly irritation came back, winding its way up her spine and into her mind. She didn't know why the man was staring at her, but it was rude to do so. She lowered the mirror and turned her head in his direction, so that he would know she knew he was staring and would hopefully go away. But when her eyes fell upon the stall, there was nobody near it, only the plainly-dressed fruit seller hawking his wares. She turned back to the mirror, lifted it, and looked at it, but the man was definitely gone.

"Don't you think it's just perfect, Meg?" Clara asked. "I can tell you love it. What do you say, shall we buy it?"

"Very well," Meg relented. "I suppose we could buy it as a treat for ourselves."

"I am pleased to hear that," said the seller. "And I will be more than happy to wrap it for you, so that it won't be damaged before you get it home."

A short time later, both women left the stall, Clara clutching the hessian-wrapped package to her bosom as if it was her firstborn child. But Meg was pleased that her friend was happy, and she had to admit, it _was_ a very nice hand-mirror, despite its flaws. Perhaps even because of them.

"This has been a good day," she declared. "I have stocked up on my favourite perfume, and we have bought ourselves a new mirror. I haven't had this much fun in a long time."

"You're in good humour today," Clara remarked. She sounded quite surprised about it, too.

"Am I not allowed to be in a fair mood?" Meg asked, with mock severity.

Clara smiled. "It makes a nice change. I know you're not particularly fond of festivals and merriment."

"Well, I like May Day. It's a Heathen festival, you know," she said, in her best feigned scholarly tone.

"A Heathen festival? Truly?"

"Yes, I read it in a book, once." It had been in the private library of one of her 'customers.' After the man had fallen asleep, Meg had found herself bored and unsatisfied. She couldn't just leave, because her presence for the entire night had been paid for, so she'd taken one of the books from the shelf set into the wall and read all about the history of England before foreigners had brought Christianity and forced it onto the local 'heathens.' "When people worshipped the old gods, Beltane, or what we know as May Day, marked the beginning of true summer, and it is the mid-way point between the spring equinox and the summer solstice. It's one of the few festivals that hasn't been changed by Christianity or Catholicism."

"How scandalous! It makes me shiver, to think of such things." And Clara really _did_ shiver, clutching the mirror more tightly as if it could warm her. "_Must_ we talk of heathen gods and pagan festivals?"

"I suppose not."

"Thank you. Do you still want to come and watch a play with me?" Clara smiled, her mind already moving on from thoughts of heathens. "It will be my treat, since you agreed to the mirror. And I'll buy you a cup of spiced wine, too."

"That does sound nice," she admitted. It was rare for them to enjoy a drink together; normally, one or the other of them had to work nights. "Let's go and pay our respects to the Green Man, and then we'll visit the Grey Mare and watch one of the plays."

They stopped by the fruit-stall – Meg briefly looked around for any sign of the strange man who had been watching her, but there was none – and they bought a small bag of apples. Meg carried it, because Clara didn't appear to be loosening her grip on the mirror any time soon, and together they made their way across the field, to the edge of a lily-choked pond.

The effigy standing in front of the pond was easily ten feet tall. He stood on legs of woven willow branches, the wicker so dense that it was almost solid. Up and up his legs went, leading to a torso of branches, some of them still bearing leaves. Two long wicker arms hung down by his side, terminating in hands that had fingers of sharp sawed-off branches. Atop the body was the most fearsome aspect of the Green Man; his head was a mass of green ivy, spilling down like hair, and inside the jumble was a fearsome face, carved into a large piece of wood. The features were rough-hewn, the eyes large and bulging, the nose thin and the lips parted to show a tongue within. The Green Man's mouth was always open, ready to accept his yearly tribute.

When they arrived at the Green Man's feet, they found they were not alone. Four young boys were standing near him, hanging back and looking rather suspicious. They eyed Meg and Clara warily, but watched as both women dropped one of the apples from the bag inside the trunk that had been placed between the effigy's legs. It was already half-filled with tribute; loaves of bread, cups of dried berries, bottles of mulled wine, plates of sliced meat, even a small clutch of eggs; the food-stuffs were many and varied. The Green Man would eat well tonight.

"Go on, I dare ya!"

Meg overheard the whisper, passed from one boy to another. She straightened up from her examination of the trunk, and glanced at the children.

"What are you daring each other?" she asked.

The boys looked at each other, sharing a guilty expression around, but at last one of them stepped forward and spoke up, pushing his too-large hat up away from his eyes so he could see her more clearly.

"My Ma says the Green Man's real, an' tha' he comes out of the forest every May Day, an' if he doesn't get enough ta eat, he comes for naughty boys like me and snatches us from our beds."

"That's right." She aimed a wink at Clara, telling her friend to play along. The young woman merely rolled her eyes and hid a knowing smile. "I was walking down by the palace the other night when I saw the Green Man come striding out of the forest. I hid so that he couldn't see me, and watched as he searched the park for naughty boys. Finding none he returned to the forest, but he obviously knew to come here today."

"I told ya!" the boy shouted at his friends. "No way I'm touchin' him now!"

"Is that what your friends were daring you to do? Touch the Green Man?"

"Yeh."

"I wouldn't, if I were you. Once you've touched him he'll have your smell, and he'll be able to follow you wherever you go, like a hound tracking a deer."

"I hear, though," Clara spoke up, her voice pitched low and ominous, "that the Green Man only ever takes naughty boys. If he sees a good boy, who helps his mother with the chores and looks out for his brothers and sisters, then those boys taste foul to him, too full of goodness to enjoy, so he leaves them alone."

"Cor," said the boy, his blue eyes wide. "Really?"

"Really."

"But my mam's dead," another boy spoke up. He looked close to tears. "Does that mean the Green Man can eat me?"

"No," said Meg, elaborating on Clara's lie, "it just means you have to help your Pap, or whoever you live with."

"I will! I'm gonna go home right now and help my Pa!"

The boy set off running, and his three friends followed him, calling after him to wait for them. Meg and Clara burst into laughter, holding their sides as they struggled to draw breath. When at last they managed it they straightened up, and looked once more to the Green Man.

"At least there will be a couple of mothers out there grateful to us tonight," Meg said.

"Oh yes, we're practically saints," Clara giggled. Then she looked at the Green Man's face, and hugged the mirror more tightly to her body. "Meg... you were just joking about seeing the Green Man walking around, weren't you?"

"Of course!" she scoffed. "It's just a statue, Clara. Some of the city men go out into the woods a couple of nights before May Day, and make it out of willow trees. Then before dawn they come back and bring it out here, and stand it up with a tribute trunk, so everybody thinks he walked here by himself. It's about as real as those actors you're so fond of."

"I know. It's not real. But I don't understand why we give it tribute every year. It's not as if it's _really_ going to eat what we leave."

"We do it because we've always done it," she shrugged. "It's traditional. Like the Maypole; you always used to dance around that, when you were young. Did you have to know why?"

"I suppose not. Though the Maypole was a lot more fun than the Green Man. Slugs not withstanding, of course."

Meg laughed, and took her friend's arm once more, leading her away from the pond. Just as she was about to recommend they make their way towards the Grey Mare, the wind picked up, blowing a cool breeze across her neck, and she swore she heard somebody whisper a single word; _Meg_.

She turned her head, and frowned. There was, of course, nobody behind her, and she put it down to a trick of her imagination. And when she thought she saw the Green Man blink his bulging eyes, she put that down to her imagination too. Because everybody knew the Green Man was just a legend, and wooden eyes could not blink.


	2. Jezebel

_Author's Note: Reader discretion is advised. I had to bump the rating up to M for this chapter, and not because it's sexyfuntimes. If you are easily upset or offended by the implication of sexual abuse (something which is rife even in these 'enlightened' times), skip this chapter and come back for chapter 3 next week._

* * *

Forsaken

_2. Jezebel_

The unnatural heat lasted for the rest of the day. The actors on the stage were already wilting by the time Clara and Meg reached the Grey Mare. The two women, each armed with a cup of cool spiced wine from the bar of the tavern, took seats on one of the benches, squeezing themselves in beside the already-sweating patrons. Meg, who had a free hand, took out her fan and wafted first her own face, then Clara's. The other woman smiled gratefully at her, but the fan was largely a futile exercise; all it did was move warm air around, instead of generating a cool breeze.

Clara took a sip of her wine, her other hand still clutching the hessian sack tightly. When Meg noticed her friend's knuckles turning white, she leant to the side, to whisper in Clara's ear.

"We should have left that at the house."

"Not a chance I was going back there. If George had seen us, he probably would have conscripted us into working tonight."

One of the actors glared at the two women, and Meg promptly shut her mouth, swallowing the reply she had been about to make. It could wait until later, when there were no sweaty, angry actors to shoot daggers at her for interrupting the performance with misplaced whispers.

The fan in her hand snapped open once more, and she resumed trying to cool herself down.

The hour dragged. Meg soon finished her cool wine, and though she tried her best to pay attention to the play for Clara's sake, she found her mind wandering. She wasn't the only one struggling to concentrate, however; all around the inn-yard, peoples' eyes were going glassy and vacant as they suffered in silence beneath the heat of the sun. By the end of the play, even Clara was looking miserable, and the actors were positively dripping with sweat, their voices cracked and dry. But they endured, suffering on the stage, their professionalism ultimately paying off. They brought the play to its conclusion and finished with deep bows as the audience clapped and cheered and threw coins at them.

"Let's go, Clara," said Meg, as the crowd began to depart. The sun was beginning to set, the sky becoming a deeper blue as the celestial ball of heat stopped punishing the people of London so mercilessly and began its slow descent to the horizon. "Let's get home, and get out of these clothes."

"I'll 'elp you get out of those clothes if you loike, lovely," called one of the drunker members of the dispersing audience. He leered suggestively at her, his eyes travelling straight to the arch of her breasts.

The fan snapped open, and Meg lifted her chin haughtily as she blew slightly cooler air across her face. "You couldn't afford even a quarter-hour of our services. I suggest you trawl the docks for the street-walkers. They, I think, are more suited to your price range," she told him imperiously. Then she offered her arm to her friend. "Come, Clara."

Clara accepted her arm and together they marched out of the inn-yard and onto the main street. They dodged piles of horse dung and effluent thrown from the windows above, and set a steady pace away from the Grey Mare. Meg did not fear retaliation from the man she had insulted; he was far too drunk to pursue them, and likely wouldn't even remember this encounter come morning, but she liked to be home by nightfall. It helped to avoid any... misunderstandings.

She smiled to herself when Clara began humming a tune, one of the jigs that had been played by a piper at the fair. Her friend's humming often brought back fond memories, of another woman who had hummed her to sleep when she had been barely old enough to walk. It was one of the warmest memories she had, and it immediately evoked a feeling of safety and comfort. Her family had never been rich, but at least when mother had been alive, they had been happy.

From the corner of her eye she saw movement from the shadows of an alley, and she squinted into the darkness. A thin leg bared beneath a dirty skirt was pulled back out of the light, and dull eyes, ringed below with dark, tired crescents, watched her with unguarded envy. Meg felt a moment of sympathy for the pitiful creature; she had once been that woman, barely more than a girl, standing in the shadows, waiting for the next drunkard to come along, watching invidiously as the better-dressed women ambled past seemingly without a care in the world.

Old Meg had escaped that life. Now she did not stand dirty in the shadows. Now she had a roof over her head, a bed free of the lice which bit incessantly, a meal every morning and every night. But that didn't mean the shadows weren't still there. When she had left that life, she had stepped out of the shadows, but she had brought them with her, carrying them around inside her head, to be stepped into whenever she had to work. In the shadows she was safe, hidden, and her true self could never be seen. The men who craved her flesh, squeezing it and grasping it greedily with their fingers, could never touch the part of her that veiled itself in the shadows of her mind. All they ever got was an empty shell.

She turned her thoughts away from the street-walker, concentrating once more on the cobbled roads. London was the only life she had ever known, and as a woman of experience, she was well-acquainted with the duality in the nature of its streets. You either kept your eyes on the ground, watching where you stepped and never seeing the blade which struck towards you, or you walked with your head held high as you watched for the blade, and stepped in horse shit. The best way to survive London was to keep your chin up and your gaze down. It also helped to have a second pair of eyes with you, and Clara had been her second pair of eyes for nearly three years now. She was more sister than friend.

When they reached the tanner's shop, they let themselves in through the side gate which admitted them to the alley, and after a few strides of near-total darkness, they stepped out into the small courtyard. Scraps of leather littered the cobbles, and both women stepped over a rivulet of yellow-brown tannin, taking care not to let it stain their shoes. The whole place stank of it, bitter and acrid; most of George's girls hated the smell, but Meg actually liked it. On the days when the wind blew the smell of the Thames across the northern part of the city, the tannin was the only thing which prevented her from smelling the fish and being taken back to her painful childhood. Sometimes, as she stood inhaling the scent of the bitter natural dye, she felt that it was taking up residence inside her, all that sharp tanginess nurturing the gently simmering anger which permeated her body.

Clara took out a key from her drawstring purse and used it to open the back door of the building which shared the courtyard with the tanner's workshop. The four-bedroom building housed eight girls, and the front door had been bricked up to prevent unwanted visitors having easy access. George did not like visitors to the house. This was not a brothel, he said, and he was very protective of 'his girls.' He ran a good, clean business providing company for the lonely bachelors of London. His girls were too good for working the streets like common prostitutes, and he was too cheap to pay the wages of any guards that would be required to turn the building into a house of ill repute. As a result, he made a tidy profit, his girls were safe, clean and well-fed, and once every fortnight he gave them a share of their takings, so they could buy themselves 'nice things'. It was a small allowance, but it was better than what Meg had earned on the streets.

"Fair evening!" Clara called out, once the door was locked behind them. "Is anybody else home?"

There was a resounding silence, and Meg noticed that the candles and oil lamps had been extinguished. "It seems everybody else is still out celebrating May Day... or perhaps working."

"Yes, it appears we're alone. I'll go and get a splint, and light some of these lamps from the kitchen fire."

"No, I'll do it," Meg offered. "You go and take your new prize upstairs. Here, take my perfume bottles, too." She handed the small purse of glass vials to her friend.

"Thanks, Meg. I'll be down in a moment," Clara smiled.

Meg walked through the house and into the kitchen, not needing light to see by. This place was home, its hallways as familiar to her as her own body. Perhaps even more so. And when she reached the kitchen she found the fire banked, a pot of stew and dumplings suspended above it. After feeding the fire and using a wooden splint to light several oil-lamps, which she placed in their niches in the walls of the hallways, she returned to the kitchen and ladled some of the stew and dumplings into two bowls, then broke off two crusty pieces of bread from the round loaf in the cold oven. When Clara returned from the bedroom they sat down at the table to a warm, filling supper, enjoying the companionable silence between them.

Their hunger sated, they banked the fire once more, dimmed the oil lamps and climbed the stairs to the top floor, where their bedroom was located. From the third floor of the building they had a decent view of surrounding London, and Meg loved looking out across the vista of the city. Although she would never admit it to anyone, she often spent time imagining what life was like away from England's capital. She imagined much of it to be like the festival field, all green and open, untainted by the corrupt hands of men.

She placed the candlestick she had brought with her onto the small chest of drawers beside the single large bed, and used the flame to light several other candles in the room. Clara was already halfway to undressed, and Meg soon joined her, shedding the uncomfortably warm linen and cambric dress, stripping out of her petticoat and changing into the thin cotton shift which was being worn for the first time this year. It was clean, and smelt of the lavender flowers she had put in the chest of drawers to keep her clothes smelling fresh throughout the winter.

They helped each other to unpin their hair, their long locks finally falling free. Meg brought out a soft-bristled brush, and ran it through Clara's hair whilst Clara held up her new mirror, watching the brush pass through her long hair, smiling at her own reflection. With her hair un-knotted for bed, they swapped places, and Meg sat peacefully with her eyes closed as Clara worked the knots out of her tangled locks. This was something she had done for her sister, when they had been little girls. Anne had loved having her hair brushed before bed.

When their grooming was complete, Meg left the bed and went to the window, ready to close the curtains; not that they would keep much of the morning sun out. They were more for privacy than for darkness. When she reached the thick pane of glass, she looked out of it for a moment, the dark cityscape slightly distorted by the natural shape of the glass panel. Warped as it was through the translucent material, it had an almost dream-like quality to it.

"Our Father in Heaven, hallowed is thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is done in Heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who commit trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil, in thy kingdom, thy power and thy glory, from this day and forever, so shall it be."

Meg turned her head from her observation of the city and saw Clara kneeling at the side of the bed, her eyes closed and her hands clasped around the small silver necklace she wore on a long chain around her neck. It was Clara's nightly ritual, and Meg never questioned it. She, too, had been taught to pray to God, but she had not prayed in a very long time. Now, listening to the prayer, she felt the irritation rankling inside her. She didn't know whether it was because she was still annoyed by the heat, or the May Queen, or whether it reflected a change in her own understanding, but for the first time, she spoke out against the prayer.

"I don't know why you bother praying. We are the living embodiment of temptation. We incite men to commit adultery, we harbour greed and lust within their hearts."

"That doesn't mean God isn't listening," Clara replied, opening her eyes.

"We're whores. God does not care about women like us. To him we are unworthy, unclean sinners."

"Perhaps we're merely a means to an end."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, God often sends trials, by which to test people. Perhaps we are an instrument of his testing."

"Better to be an unworthy sinner than the tool of an uncaring God," Meg scowled. How could Clara be so nonchalant about it? Did she think her soul would be welcomed to Heaven, when she died? Heaven was not for whores. Heaven was for saints, and priests, and the people who went to church and sang His praises and gave alms.

She drew the curtains across the window and joined her friend, sitting beside her on the bed, the blessedly cool air stirring against her bare skin beneath her shift. "Clara," she said, "God has abandoned us. That is why we are _here_. Think about it. Your family's business, your parents' death in that terrible fire... you barely escaped with your life. Was that one of God's tests, too? Did he decide to test you by making a pauper of you, by making you penniless and starving? Did he want you to die, rather than turn to this life to survive?"

"My life has been touched by tragedy, it is true, but it's not all bad. I have my life... I have you, and the other girls. You are my family now." Clara's deep brown eyes shone brightly in the candle-light, and she reached out with one hand, resting it upon Meg's shoulder. "Why is it so hard for you to accept God's love, and his forgiveness?"

Meg felt her heart constrict inside her chest. Forgiveness? She did not deserve forgiveness. She had done terrible, terrible things. Terrible things which she would gladly do again, had she the opportunity. Prostitution wasn't even one of them, it was simply a job. Something that was an improvement on being homeless and starving. It was the life she had known since she was thirteen years old, a girl too tall for her age and with a painted face, a mask which hid her youth. The men who paid a mere sixpence for twenty minutes of gratification in some cheaply rented inn room, or more commonly, in the darkest recesses of whatever alley she happened to be working out of, never commented on the youthful tone of her body, at the curves which were still in the process of forming. They probably didn't even care.

And here was Clara, looking at her with such hopefulness and sympathy, wanting to know what had been so _terrible_ that she couldn't accept the comfort and forgiveness of the Lord. Clara, who was far stronger than Meg, for Clara endured what they all endured, and did not let it tarnish her soul, destroy her hope or rip out her compassion. Inside Clara was a woman, who had dreams and expectations, who could imagine something _more_ for herself, who did not carry the weight of death and loss inside her.

She blinked, ridding her eyes of the tears which had started to well. "You remind me so much of my sister," she said.

"I—I never knew you had a sister." There was hesitation in Clara's tone. She didn't want to pry. But at the same time... she did.

"Her name was Anne," Meg explained. "Every night she would pray to God. She would beg, and plead, and promise. And he never answered. Not once."

"What did she pray for?"

"She wanted to see mama again." The lie slid easily from her tongue. It was a lie of protection, as powerful as any charm, as any crucifix worn around a neck, as any holy water used to bless a babe. Just one more way of protecting herself from the truth she feared to face.

_The memory slid into her mind as easily as the lie slid from her tongue._

_ Meg woke to the sound of weeping. Anne was crying again, her heart-aching sobs echoing through the small house. Meg left her bed, tiptoeing silently down the hall, her feet made cold by the bare wooden floorboards. When she passed her father's room she heard loud snores from within; he always snored loudly when he was drunk, and she knew he would not wake for many hours._

_ When she reached Anne's room she found the door slightly ajar. She peered inside. Her little sister was curled up in bed, her hair completely dishevelled, her tear-stained face puffy and distraught. Heaving sobs wracked her tiny body; four years younger than Meg, barely into her twelfth year, she was not old enough to know sadness and misery this great._

_ Meg saw her sister's lips move, noticed her hands clasping the silver chain bequeathed to her by their mother upon her death-bed. She knew that the small silver cross was held in the middle of those small, shaking hands, and she heard the litany which spilled softly from her sister's lips._

_ "Please, God, make it stop. I'll do anything you ask of me, whatever you want. I'll be a good girl. I'll work at the docks, like Meg used to. I'll give myself to the Church, I'll serve the priests, I'll give up all of my worldly possession. But please, make it stop."_

_ Meg knew she should have gone in there, but she couldn't. What could she possibly say to her little sister? "It's okay, he does that to me, too"? But that didn't make it okay. That didn't make it right. It wouldn't lessen Anne's suffering. "I will protect you"? But she couldn't protect her sister from the one person who should have protected _them_. There was no lie she could tell to end her sister's misery, not even to end her own misery. So she chose to do nothing._

_ She went back to her own bedroom, closed the door, and tried not to listen to her sister weeping. It wasn't the first time she had done it. And it wasn't the last._

Back in the bedroom again, she looked at Clara's expectant face and realised she had missed part of the conversation. Swallowing, trying to choke down the lump wedged in her throat, she asked, "Sorry, what did you say?"

"I just asked what happened to your sister. That is, if it's not too painful for you to talk about."

Meg shook her head. It was too painful to talk about, too painful to think about, too painful to _exist_. But she had opened this door and invited Clara in; she couldn't slam it closed on the woman now. Clara was the closest thing to family she had left. She was like a sister... but this time, Meg was determined to do better by her sister. She would look after Clara, as she had not been able to look after Anne. It was not atonement, or redemption, but a small matter of easing her own grief and guilt. Some good, however minute, would come from her past mistakes.

"It was an accident," she said. _It wasn't an accident,_ echoed her voice inside her head, reflected around every corner of her mind. "She was playing down by the docks with some friends." _She had no friends._ "It was winter, and the docks were icy." _It was spring, and there was no ice in sight._ "She slipped and fell in." _She didn't slip._ "Several fishermen saw her fall, but by the time they reached her and managed to pull her out, she was already gone." _Nobody saw her jump. She drowned alone, her body rotting in the Thames. It was two days before anybody saw her, all purple and bloated, her eyes gone, gnawed on by hungry fish. Their revenge for you spilling their guts._

"Oh, Meg, I'm so sorry. I know your mother passed when you were young, but to lose your sister to such a cruel fate... did that happen before your father ran off and left you, or after?"

"Before," she said numbly. "I think that's why he left. Figured I was old enough to take care of myself and he was better off without. Not that he was much of a father. After mama died, he spent more time drinking and sleeping than he did working. He's probably drunk himself to death by now. And good riddance."

The anger had returned at the mention of her father, and she clung to it, feeding it, letting it grow inside her. The anger was good; when she was angry, she wasn't in pain. It replaced the hurt she felt inside, the small holes in her soul which represented each and every one of her failures, and allowed her to keep drawing breath. The anger alone was almost enough to sustain her life; food and drink mostly tasted the same, and there was no pleasure to be found anywhere, save for the moments she spent with Clara.

"Well, don't worry," Clara said, leaning forward and pulling her into a tight hug. "I'm here, and I've got enough faith for both of us. You won't have to be alone again."

Meg said nothing as tears silently slid down her cheeks. Wonderful, beautiful Clara, with her heart so full of forgiveness... she would not want to touch Meg, if she knew the truth. She would not want anything to _do_ with her. Had she known the truth, she would have called for the hangman and the gallows. It was just one reason why Meg could never tell the truth. Why she could trust no-one. Why she had to carry the weight of her sins on her back alone.


	3. Customers

_Author's Note: This chapter is M for sexyfuntimes. Shield thine eyes, puritans!_

* * *

Forsaken

_3. Customers_

The new ocean-blue dress hung down from Meg's body, moulding itself to her curves, the corset, not yet tightened, accentuating her slim waist, her generous hips. She ran her hands down the material, smoothing it out over her legs, working out the minor creases that had found their way in. Made of light cotton with a fishbone bodice, it was a dress befitting June, and a new client. She knew nothing about the man except that he valued his privacy, and George would be along within the half-hour to escort her to his house. He always escorted his girls, when they were meeting a new customer for the first time. It made him appear to be a more caring employer than he actually was.

As the last rays of sunshine started to fade from the sky, she picked up the looking-glass she and Clara had bought the previous month and looked at her own reflection. Today she had styled her hair fashionably, in the Virgin Queen mode, and it was frizzed around the top of her head like a radiant crown. Her cool hazel eyes surveyed the makeup on her face, the rouge on her cheeks and lips, looking for any imperfections. There were none.

The bedroom door opened, admitting Clara. The woman offered a brief smile, and turned her body slightly to close the door behind her.

"There you are," said Meg as she pulled several strands of her hair into a new position. She didn't know why she bothered; by the time she reached this new customer's house, the wind would have ruined it anyway. She glanced at her friend in the mirror. "Would you be so kind as to lace up my corset?"

"Yes, of course."

"Where have you been, anyway? I was expecting you back hours ago."

"I was with Lord Ballentyne," Clara said. Her fingers plucked at the laces of the bodice, pulling them tightly into place.

Meg rolled her eyes, and her reflection rolled them right back. 'Lord' Timothy Ballentyne was the last of a tiny house of nobles who'd had little wealth and less sense. At fifty-five years he was no spring chicken, but he'd been using George's girls for years, and had taken a particular liking to Clara. She was the only one he had asked for, these past two years, and Meg considered herself fortunate that she'd never had to visit him. His 'mansion' was old, draughty, and smelt oddly of boiled cabbage. She'd often heard that writers and poets were eccentric, and Lord Ballentyne was no exception.

Because she was concentrating on fixing her hair, and on not wincing every time Clara pulled the corset tight, at first she did not see her friend's face. But when she caught sight of the woman's reflection she gasped and spun on the spot, not caring that the corset was starting to come loose again. Clara's right eye was swollen, almost completely closed, livid purple and blue marks around it.

"Clara, what happened?" she demanded, placing the mirror on the bed and sitting her friend down.

"I—I was so silly, Meg," Clara replied. Tears began to leak from her left eye, and when she spoke again her voice was thick and heavy as she held back the sobs. "I was waving goodbye to Lord Ballentyne, and I didn't realise I was walking towards the gate post to his estate." His 'estate' was a small patch of grass in front of his house, with two or three birch trees planted there. "I turned to reach for the gate, and hit my head on the side of the post."

"Clara, you are right-handed," Meg pointed out. "If you had been waving behind and then turned to the front, you would have hit the left side of your face against the post. Not the right. Now please, tell me what _really_ happened."

Clara was silent for a moment, looking down at her hands, which she wrung together out of fear or nervousness. Then she looked up at Meg, her left eye full of hurt and confusion, and started to quietly sob.

"It was my fault," she said, speaking when her sobs subsided long enough to allow her to talk. "I was clumsy. Lord Ballentyne asked me to fetch a drink for us. I was pouring whisky from a bottle, into two glasses on his desk. The bottle slipped from my hands, and whisky went all over some of his papers. Lord Ballentyne heard me drop the bottle, and he came to see what had happened. He was furious that I'd ruined his work. He... he lashed out with his fist, and hit me. I thought he was going to kill me, Meg. There was such anger in his eyes. Then, it was gone, just like that. He told me he was sorry he had hit me, that he'd reacted out of anger and distress. He promised it would never happen again."

"You have to tell George," Meg said immediately. It was one of George's 'rules.' If anybody mistreated his girls, they were struck off the client list. Not because he was overly bothered about the girls being hurt, but because a bruised girl was an unattractive girl, and no man wanted to bed an unattractive girl.

"I can't!" There was genuine panic on Clara's face. "Lord Ballentyne is the best-paying customer we have! And besides, he's never done anything like this before, and he promised he won't do anything like this again. As long as I don't have any more accidents or make him angry, it will be fine."

"Clara," she said, pitching her voice to soothe the woman who was like a sister to her. She ran a hand over her friend's hair, trying to smooth it down where it had come loose. "You've just learnt something that I've known for a very long time. You cannot trust men. Each and every one of them is ruled by his carnal desires. Men take what they want, when they want it, and damn anybody who stands in their way. You and I are governed by men; we come when they call, serve their needs, see them smiling at us when we do something that pleases them... but we must never, ever trust them. The moment you let a man close to you, he will hurt you. It's not their fault; it is in their nature."

"How... how can you live like that?"

"Easily. You build a wall around yourself, around your feelings, around who you are inside here." She tapped a hand to Clara's chest. "You put ramparts on it, and battlements. You turn that wall into a _castle_, if you have to. Fortify it any way you can. And once it's there, and it's strong, you stay behind it. You stay behind it where you're safe, and you never, ever, ever let a man inside. All it takes is one man, one moment of trust, and the whole thing could come crashing down, and then you're right back where you started."

Clara lowered her eyes, her gaze going instinctively to the hand-mirror lying glass-side down. She reached out with one hand, letting the tips of her fingers trace over the black lacquer and the iridescent imperfect angel.

"Is that how you get through it?" she asked quietly.

Meg sensed her reticence, and understood it. They were whores, but they never talked about sex. She had no idea what the other girls did to cope with what was done to their bodies several times a week, and she didn't want to know. She'd seen Marie pulling her hair out, one strand at a time, when she thought nobody was looking. Sara's nails were bitten down to the quick, and sometimes they bled. Rose could be heard pacing her room at night; the Lord only knew how her bed-mate, Ester, slept through it. What the others did she could not guess.

"Yes," she replied, offering no elaboration.

"_Meg! It's time to go!"_

George's voice drifted up the stairwell, and could be heard even through the closed door. Clara looked up, her face frozen in fear.

"I'll be right down, I'm just fastening my corset!" Meg yelled back, knowing he could hear her just as well as she could hear him.

"Please, Meg, help me," Clara said. She clutched at her hand like a frightened child grabbing at its parent. "Tell George I've got the trots, or that I have a cold. Anything to stop me having to see him until this has faded enough to be covered by makeup."

Meg sighed. She knew that in order to _truly_ help her friend, she should tell George everything that had happened. But Clara was the one good thing in her life, and she did not want to lose the woman's friendship. Without Clara, she would have nothing. Without Clara, she might as well be dead.

"Very well," she agreed. "When I've gone, get a bowl of water from the pump in the courtyard, soak a rag in it, and hold it against your eye for as long as you can. It will help take the swelling down. Now quickly, help me with this corset before George decides to come and drag me downstairs."

Clara jumped to obey, hastily fastened the corset as tight as she could manage with her shaking hands. Meg forgot all about her hair as she tried to think of ways to get Clara out of George's sight for the next few days. She knew that a black eye could take a while to fade... perhaps if they used more makeup they could mask the worst of it once the angry swelling had died down.

"There, finished," Clara said. "You look beautiful, by the way."

"I look like a whore," Meg scoffed. But she embraced her friend lightly before leaving the room and hurrying down the stairs as fast as her thin-soled pumps would allow.

George was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, an expression of barely-veiled impatience marring his wide face. His lanky blond hair had been slicked back, as far as she could tell, and was tamed beneath his taffeta flat-cap. He was obviously making an effort for this new customer, because he was wearing his finest coat over his expensive white linen shirt, and his brown boots were polished until they shone. Even his breeches had been pressed or stretched to remove the creases.

"What took you so bloody long?" he demanded.

"I had to see to poor Clara," she said airily, "she is vomiting something terrible."

"Vomiting?"

"Yes, she feared there might be blood inside it, but we came to the conclusion that it's simply whatever she ate whilst dining with Lord Ballentyne last night. She still has the pail beside the bed, if you want to go and make sure it's definitely not blood."

"What? Of course I don't want to go and look at vomit. We've got a bloody customer to go and see." He pulled a face of disgust.

"Of course. Well, if I were you I wouldn't let the poor girl leave the house for the next couple of days. I suspect Lord Ballentyne's taste in food is a little refined for Clara's pallet."

"Just... let me know when she stops vomiting," he said, with a long-suffering sigh. "Now let's be off, I told Mr Litton we'd be at his house by nightfall, and it nearly is."

They left the house, and he locked the door behind himself, then offered his arm which she knew better than to refuse. Together they strolled from the yard, out into the street, and began the daily routine of dodging horse shit and human effluent. For a few moments Meg's concentration was taken with trying to keep her blue slippers clean, but when the cobbles finally became a little cleaner she looked towards George, just able to make out his features in the failing light.

"Who is Mr Litton?" she asked.

"A merchant. A newly wealthy merchant. His family have owned a mine in Cornwall since the dawn of time, apparently. They thought it was dried up, but a newly discovered vein of some sort of ore has changed his fortunes. He's just bought himself a small house in London, so that he can personally oversee the business of trade and export in our fair capital city."

"Yes, but is he old, young, handsome, a troll?"

"Do I look like someone who pays attention to what other men look like?" He must have seen the cold glint in her eye, because he scowled. "Answer that and I'll give you a clip 'round the ear and I don't give a damn who's watching or how much it rattles what passes for a brain in that head of yours."

She bit her tongue, just about managing to hold back the scathing reply. She was, she decided, getting better at it. Was a time when she wouldn't have hesitated to tell him what she thought of him, but time and experience were great teachers, and she knew better now. Besides, it was one more piece of fodder for the fire of anger within her, one more thing to fan the flames of irritation which licked at her soul and kept the grief and guilt from overwhelming her heart.

Stannary Street was just a stone's throw away from Kennington Park, where the May Day festivities had taken place over a month ago. It was one of the quieter areas of London, away from the revelry of the city centre and the intrigue of court. The house George stopped at wasn't as small as Meg imagined; two storey and detached from its neighbours, it possessed a small garden behind front gates, and a larger garden to the rear. She could just about make out an apple tree growing behind the house, and then George was leading her forward, towards the steps of the door.

"Remind me again," he said quietly, from the corner of his mouth, "what are you going to do?"

"Sit there quietly looking pretty and smiling," she said by rote.

"And what are you _not_ going to do?"

"Open my mouth unless asked a direct question, or offer my unwanted opinion on anything at all."

"Good. Play this right and we'll have ourselves another regular customer. Play it wrong, and... well... Lord Ballentyne's going to need _someone_ to keep him company whilst poor little Clara's recovering."

She tried not to shiver at the threat. Before today, she'd never liked Lord Ballentyne much. Now, after what he had done to Clara, she hated him. If she had to go and see him, to lie with him, to let him have his way with her body... she wasn't sure she would leave his 'estate' with clean hands.

George reached out towards the door, lifting the ring of the lion-head knocker, and it went _tap tap tap_, the sound echoing through the quiet street. Meg began to count in her head. You could usually tell what kind of a man you were dealing with by how long he made you wait at the front door. Below five seconds was a man who knew exactly what he wanted and was impatient to get it. Between five and ten was a man suffering from some minor nerves, taking the chance for a last deep breath or a quick snifter of brandy before opening the door. Fifteen seconds meant you were dealing with a man wrestling with his nerves or his conscience, his desires and his common-sense battling each other for dominance. Twenty seconds or more and there was probably no chance of that door being opened.

When she reached seventeen, the door opened slightly, and a man looked out. Her first thought was that he wasn't as old as she had been expecting. He probably wasn't a day over thirty. His attractive blue eyes were filled with nervousness and caution, like a rabbit might look when faced by two hounds. His mahogany-coloured hair was shoulder-length and loose, and his beard and moustache, both neatly trimmed, had the same slight reddish tinge as his hair. He, like George, appeared to have made an effort; his clothes were of finer cut and material than George's, though not sumptuous enough to denote him as a noble. Just a fairly well-to-do, nervous, merchant.

"Good to see you again, Mr Litton," said George, doffing his cap and offering a small bow. "This lovely lady beside me is Meg. She's your companion for this evening."

"Meg," said Litton, running his eyes over her. "It's... umm... well, please come in." He glanced briefly around, ensuring the rest of the street was empty, then opened the door wide to admit them both. George, ever the gentleman when there were witnesses around to see it, escorted her up the steps and allowed her to enter first. Litton closed the front door and led them swiftly into the first room off the hallway, which turned out to be a withdrawing room. A small fire was burning in the hearth, most likely to provide a welcoming atmosphere; it was warm enough this evening that it wasn't technically required for heat. There were two settees standing opposite each other in front of the fireplace, but it was the books which caught Meg's eye. They lined two deep-set shelves in the wall, row after row of them.

"You have a lovely home, might I say? My compliments to your maid," said George.

"Thank you," said Litton, neither confirming nor denying that he was wealthy enough to afford a maid yet. He spread his arms out, gesturing at the sofas. "Please, take a seat. Can I get you a drink?"

"No thank you, I won't be staying long enough to enjoy it," George said with a smile. "Perhaps some other time."

He stepped towards one of the settees, and Meg disengaged from his arm, joining him on the hard, upholstered sofa. She sat as demurely as she could manage, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze lowered. Most men thought that a lowered gaze on a woman meant she was shy. Mostly it meant she was watching him through her lashes.

"As you wish." Litton reached into his pocket and came out with a coin purse, which he handed to George. "Two crowns, three shillings, as agreed. Count it, if you like."

George put on his offended act, feigned shock rippling across his face. "Please, Mr Litton, this arrangement works on trust! I trust you, you trust me, and hopefully this is the start of a long term business agreement. If you say it's all there, then I need no more assurance than that." He pocketed the purse and gestured to Meg as Litton took a seat on the opposite sofa. "Meg here is a wonderful girl, discretion is her middle name. You'll find her a very engaging companion, I'm sure. Her company is yours until seven o'clock in the morning, at which time she's due back home. Now, I shall give you two a little privacy, let you get to know each other."

"I'll show you out," said Litton.

"That's very kind of you."

Meg watched as Litton escorted George out. She could recall a time, when she had been just a girl, when an encounter like this would have left her with butterflies in her stomach and sweaty palms. Now she was simply numb to it. This was just one more job. Just one more customer. Another night of pretending to be somewhere else... to be _somebody_ else. Those actors on that stage thought they had it tough? Every day she had to be somebody she wasn't, and at the end of the performance she wasn't showered with coins for her efforts. Sometimes she was lucky if she got a grunt of goodbye.

Litton returned to the room, drywashed his hands a couple of times, then seemed to realise what he was doing. He lowered his hands to his sides and took his seat on the sofa, letting his gaze linger over her, his eyes taking everything from the top of her head down to the slightly dirty blue slippers on her feet. As instructed, Meg said nothing. Besides, it was more fun to make nervous men squirm a little.

"I... um... I've never done this before," he admitted, his blue eyes snapping back to her face. It made a pleasant change from men talking to her breasts.

She gave him a mischievous smile, felt one of her eyebrows arching up. "At your age? What are you, a priest?"

A slight blush coloured his cheeks, which she found rather endearing. "Oh, I mean, I've obviously done... well... _this_ before. Just never with a... ahh..."

"Lady of negotiable affection?" she finished.

"Yes," he said, looking relieved. Probably glad she hadn't used the term 'whore.' He looked to be one of those men who didn't like the term, or what it implied about himself for negotiating for the affections of one. He continued, a little more steadily, his nerves starting to melt. "I had a wife. She passed away about a year ago."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she replied, though she knew it sounded as hollow to his ears as it did to hers.

He nodded anyway. "Yeah. I thought after Alice... well, when we married, I swore it would be until death parted us, which it did. And I love her still. There's not a day goes by when I don't think about her. But the nights... they get lonely, sometimes. I thought moving house would help. I even got a new bed. But it still feels so empty."

"From what I hear," she mused aloud, "you're not doing too bad for yourself, these days. New ore vein in your mines, new house here in aromatic London. I'm sure you're making plenty of new friends."

He nodded again, understanding the implication. "So why do I need to pay for the services of a 'lady of negotiable affection,' such as yourself?"

"I don't mean to pry," she lied insincerely.

"It's okay. And you're right, I have been making new friends." He sighed, leaning back against the settee. A look of tiredness passed across his eyes. "Today, men shake my hand who would not have done so a year ago. Ladies, who would a year ago have turned up their noses at me, now bat their lashes coyly and drop me the most opaque of hints to let me know they are completely eligible. That's why, when I heard about George, I was immediately interested. I want you here exactly because your affection _is_ negotiable. When it comes right down to it, all I am is a merchant. It's what I know best. At the end of the night, I get what I want, and you get paid for providing a service. Then we part, with neither of us having expectations of the other. I'm not looking for a replacement for my dead wife. I'd just like a little occasional companionship. To every now and again, feel like I'm not in this alone."

It was the most honest thing any man had ever said to her, and with each word she felt her defences stripped, the walls she had erected around her inner self, to keep the real Meg safe, taken apart brick by brick. Desperately she fought to strengthen the walls. She took her mind to the darkest of place. _Ballentyne hitting Clara. Anne's body, floating cold and alone in the Thames, the fish clustering round, picking at it like warter-borne vultures. Her father's rancid, alcoholic breath making her choke with revulsion and fear as he stood over her bed._

"Are you alright, Meg?" Litton asked, his brows creasing as he frowned. "You look rather pale. Would you like something to drink?"

She took a deep breath, bringing herself back to the present, forcing herself to concentrate on his concerned blue eyes. She felt her breaths slow and become deeper, felt her heart cease racing in her chest. The battle for control had been won... albeit barely. Now, though, she was back into familiar territory. Now, she could cope.

"Yes, I would," she said. "But please, let me get the drinks. It's just part of the service."

"Alright," he said. "There's some brandy in the cupboard, and the tumblers—"

"I know my way around a drinks cabinet, sweetness," she interrupted with a smile.

Taking a deep breath, she left the safety of the sofa and stepped softly across the floor to the dark wooden cabinet, inside which were a number of glasses of differing sizes and shapes. She selected two fine, crystal-cut glasses and placed them on the sideboard. Once she'd retrieved the brandy from the cupboard below, she poured two small measures. To her shame she noticed her hand shaking, the decanter banging gently against the glasses as she poured. Cursing her own stupidity, and the stupid man for so effectively disarming her, she put the brandy bottle to one side and counted slowly to ten in her head. It helped to calm her a little, and when she was sure her hands wouldn't shake again she picked up both glasses and returned to the sofa.

He accepted one of the tumblers from her, and held his glass towards her. "To what I hope is the start of a productive and enjoyable business agreement."

She clinked her glass against his and swallowed a mouthful of the brandy. Though she was certainly no expert, this seemed to be good stuff. It warmed her throat and spread throughout her stomach like a small flood of liquid fire. The relaxation it provided her was not immediate, but it did offer her a moment in which to regain her composure after the momentary loss of control. She had a pretty good idea, now, of what Litton was expecting. He, unlike the majority of her customers, was a businessman. A professional. He would find comfort in familiarity; in having things laid out before him, of having a plan to follow. Plans, she could work with. Plans were solid, predictable. They left no room for surprises.

"Well, Mr Litton," she said, "would you perhaps like to show me where this business arrangement of ours is to be enacted? Unless, of course, you would prefer a demonstration of my services available here."

"Please, call me Thomas," he said with a smile which lit up his blue eyes. "I like to work on a first-name basis with all of my business partners. It makes things a little less formal."

"Very well, Thomas."

"And yes, you're right, we should go upstairs now." He downed the remainder of his brandy, and she followed suit. The warming sensation it provided was lesser, this time, but it was still a nice change from what she was usually offered, which was nothing. She could, she thought with a smile as he walked towards the stairs and gestured for her to follow, get used to this. Most customers were normally impatient, pulling her out of her clothes the second she walked through the door with little or no regard for the pleasantries.

He didn't offer his hand or his arm as he led her up the stairs to the second floor, and he offered her no words as she followed him through an open door, which he closed behind her. This bedroom was one of the nicest she had been in; the bed was new and comfortably wide enough for two, and even from here she could smell the freshness of the blankets covering it. They smelt like honeysuckle, and it made her feel more relaxed. As with in the drawing room, there was a small fire blazing merrily here, which wasn't needed but was welcome nonetheless. The curtains had been drawn, candles in sconces on the walls provided small pools of soft yellow light, and an oil lamp by the bed looked to have been lit for some time. There was a stack of books on a desk beneath the window, a small wooden chair tucked away beneath the table top.

"So," he said, joining her in the centre of the room.

She turned to face him, finally taking in a full measure of him now that they were standing face to face. He was a good few inches taller than her, and in this low light the red in his brown hair and beard was reflected more softly, luminescing in the candlelight. The clothes he wore were well-tailored, and fit his body snugly. He wasn't a broad man, like George, but she suspected he was one of those men whose slighter stature belied his strength.

"It's been a while, for me," he said, when she offered no conversation. "I'd almost forgotten what it feels like to be in the company of a woman."

"Maybe you just need a little reminder." She stepped forward and stood on her tiptoes, brushing her lips gently against his. His beard tickled her skin, but she ignored it as she applied a little more pressure, waiting until he responded in kind before parting her lips and flicking the tip of her tongue forwards; he tasted like brandy. Or perhaps _she_ tasted like brandy. It didn't matter. Somebody tasted like brandy, which was a far more enjoyable taste than her usual fare.

At last she pulled away from him, to judge his reaction. She couldn't tell whether the black of his pupils were reflecting the firelight, or whether the fire came from within, but there was no mistaking the desire, the hunger, swimming in the depths of his eyes.

"I think you're right," he said, once he had caught his breath. "I did need that reminder." He lifted his hand, running his fingers across her cheekbone, then reaching behind her for the pins holding her hair in place. "You know, you're more beautiful than I'd hoped. Even with that stuff plastered on your face, I can see how beautiful you are beneath."

"If you don't stop with the sweet-talk you're going to make me blush," she said, to mask her confusion, to hide the strange fluttery feeling in her stomach. Probably caused by the brandy. She shouldn't have drunk it so quickly.

The fact that he so easily removed the pins from her hair told her he'd probably done exactly the same thing for his wife. Once he'd removed them all he tossed them onto the desk, and ran his fingers through her hair, straightening it out so that it fell down her back. She simply stood there, watching him, failing to understand why he was doing this. In her vast and lengthy experience, the part of a woman a man cared _least_ about was her hair.

"How old are you?" he asked. The first time a man had ever done so.

She shrugged. "Twenty-something. I stopped counting a long time ago."

"Why?"

"It stopped being important. Why are you wasting two crowns and three shillings worth of your time with words?" she shot back, but without any venom. She couldn't bring herself to put her usual scathing heat into her response; slowly, she was becoming lost in his eyes, hypnotised by the flames that danced within them.

"What's your hurry? You have somewhere else to be tonight?"

For once her mind failed to provide a witty reparteé, so she opted for stoic silence and he gave a throaty chuckle.

"That's the problem with you Londoners," he said. "Always rushing to get here or there, always dashing to and fro like you're late for an important appointment. Where I come from, we do things differently. We take our time. We enjoy the journey more than the destination. Now, turn around."

She frowned, but obeyed. He was, after all, paying decent money for her to be here, and she was in no position to object to anything he asked of her. Briefly, she wondered when their roles had reversed. When had he become the confident leader, and she the nervous follower? How had he so deftly turned the tables on her, without her even noticing? He must be one hell of a mercantile negotiator.

Then, when she felt his warm hands on her neck, she stopped wondering anything. His fingers gathered up her now-loose hair, moving it to one side, brushing it over her right shoulder. She felt him step forward, closer to her, felt the warmth of his breath at the base of her neck, where it met her shoulder. His lips, soft and ticklish, made contact with her sensitive skin, and she closed her eyes as a shiver travelled up her spine, causing goosebumps to rise on her arms.

He withdrew his lips from her neck and she felt his fingers pluck with familiarity at the laces of her corset. Each time he loosened a lace she felt his fingers brush against her skin, and each brush of his fingers sent her world flying upside down. Everything became topsy turvy. Her stomach felt like it had moths inside it, battering against her insides to get out. One or two of them made it into her heart, causing it to flutter in her chest, and a tingling feeling, of excitement, of anticipation, spread out from her spine.

With the laces of her corset unfastened she could breathe a little more easily, and that was just what she needed when he began to slowly lower the dress from her shoulders, peeling it steadily from her body, one inch at a time. As her skin was exposed to the air it chilled quickly, causing her to shiver again. The thin petticoat she wore beneath the dress was poor protection against the cold, and now she was glad for the small fire burning in the hearth, despite the warmth of the night.

He turned her around, running his eyes over her, toying with a lock of her hair, wrapping it around his fingers before releasing it. Then he took her by the hand and led her towards the bed, sitting himself down. She had been right, about his strength; he proved strong enough to lift her onto his lap, where she straddled him, her body tense, unsure of what to expect in this strange, upside-down situation. He pulled off her shoes; the pumps slid easily from her feet, leaving them cold and bare. Then he kissed her again, taking her hands and guiding them to the laces of his shirt. She understood what he wanted her to do, and as their tongues met, tentatively at first but with rising ardour, her fingers worked nimbly at loosening his laces.

Off came his coat, tossed casually aside without care for it creasing. He lifted his shirt above his head, and that joined the coat, and Meg allowed herself a brief moment of pleasure. Her eyes drank in the sight of his torso, her hands tracing around the faint outline of the muscles beneath the skin. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, warming her, drawing her nearer. He allowed her to touch him as she pleased, his eyes closed, enjoying the soft, ticklish exploration of her fingers. Then he lifted her petticoat over her head, and discarded it onto the floor, where it joined the growing pile of garments. His eyes explored her bare body, drinking in the sight of her, lingering over her curves, until at last he had drunk his fill. He reached out, and touched her.

That was when it happened. It wasn't a conscious choice. By now it was a reflex, as autonomous as a blink or a heartbeat. As his hands caressed her flesh, the world began to fall away. A dark tunnel opened up before her, leading down, down into the shadows. She walked into that tunnel and began the chthonic journey into her own soul, growing colder with each and every step she took. Down, into the coldness she travelled. Her body still moved, it made the appropriate noises, it instinctively knew how to kiss back, but the real Meg was far away from that bedroom, inside her fortress of solitude, cloaked within the shadows that she had brought with her from the streets of London when she was just seventeen years old, hiding within them; the only safe place she knew.

By the time her legs were parted, and Thomas' body was riposting against her, she was long gone. Here, in the place of shadows, she could travel to different lands. No longer was she confined to London's filthy, stinking streets.

_Once she had stood at the coast, atop brilliant white cliffs, looking out at the sea. There, closing her eyes, she had imagined she was flying on great wings, being lifted into the sky by the powerful wind which tugged at her body. Another time she had travelled to a place which was like London, only the people had brown skin and spoke in foreign tongues, and they wore strange cloth hats coiled upon their heads. That place had possessed London's noise and chaos, but its roads were unpaved, the stalls far too colourful even by Elizabethan standards, and the dung littering the ground did not look quite like horse dung._

_This time, however, she found herself in a verdant green forest. A city girl through and through, she was only able to recognise willow, beech and oak, and only because they were the dominant trees of Kennington Park. But this forest was clearly no mere park woodland. It stretched on and on as far as she could see, with no end in sight. The trees towered majestically, their green canopies on full display. Ivy trailed up some of the trees, and other creeper plants she could not identify. Wherever a patch of sunlight reached the ground through a break in the canopy, ferns and mosses proliferated across the forest floor._

_Intrigued by this new place, she began to walk, her bare feet pattering softly through last year's remnants of leaf-litter. Looking down at herself, she realised she was wearing a dress of forest-green, and smiled. It was oddly fitting. And when the birds called out to her in greeting, it was as if they knew her, as if they were welcoming back an old friend._

_On through the forest she walked, listening to the blackbirds and the chaffinches, the thrushes and the sparrows. High up in the treetops, russet-coloured squirrels dropped beech nuts down on her, and she laughed at their antics. Her voice came out as the rustle of wind through leaves, rather than a normal laugh, but she did not mind. Today, it seemed, she was of the forest. There were worse things to be._

_She came to a small clearing, into which the sun shone but no ferns or mosses grew. In the centre of the clearing stood a single tree... or perhaps two trees intertwined. It was hard to tell; the trunks seemed not to be made of one trunk alone, but of myriad branches woven together. And for a tree, it was oddly-shaped. Its canopy did not stretch upwards, reaching for the sky as the other trees did. Instead, there was a tangle of ivy at its uppermost limits, a mass of chaotic green which trailed partially down the tree's body._

_As she watched, the tree opened two bulging eyes from beneath the mess of ivy, and it looked at her. A rumbling sound came from its throat, and then it moved. It reached down, towards a large wooden trunk below it which she had failed to notice at first glance, and picked out a small loaf of bread, which it placed into its open mouth._

_**"Papa?"**_

Meg was ripped out of the forest place, dragged back up through the dark tunnel. She quickly became aware that something was happening with her body. The movement had stopped mid-thrust, everything halted, at a stand-still. Returning to her body, full awareness was restored. The aroma of honeysuckle, intermingled with the smell of sex, tickled her nose. Above her, his body pressed close to hers, his arms wrapped around her, was Thomas, looking at something off to one side.

"Papa?"

Meg glanced to her right, to where Thomas was looking. A young girl was standing in the doorway, a nightdress covering her body, a thumb in her mouth. She could not have been older than five or six, and she was looking up at her father expectantly.

"What is it, Grace?" he asked. His body felt tense, and Meg could feel the sweaty slick of his skin against hers.

"There's something under my bed, Papa," the girl said, her blue eyes wide with innocent fear.

_I have to be dreaming,_ thought Meg. _This has to be some sort of strange, surreal dream. I am not really lying beneath a caring, handsome man, whilst his young daughter watches him have sex with me. This cannot possibly be real._

"Go downstairs and wait for me in the drawing room. I'll be down in a moment." The girl disappeared, pulling the door closed behind her, and Thomas looked down at Meg. "Sorry," he said, disengaging his body from hers. "I need to see to this. I'll be back soon. Get under the covers, if you like, it will keep you warm."

He grabbed his breeches and shirt from the pile of clothes on the floor, performed that fastest dressing session Meg had ever seen, and disappeared through the door after his daughter.

Meg sat up, and shivered. Her sweat-soaked body was beginning to rapidly cool, so she picked one of the woolen blankets from the bed and wrapped it around herself. What had just happened? Thomas Litton had a _daughter_? He was in here, having sex with a whore, when his _daughter_ was sleeping in the room next door? She'd thought he possessed some modicum of decency. Obviously, she had been wrong.

When it became clear Thomas wouldn't be back any time soon, she wandered over to his desk and looked at some of the books in the stack. She selected one – a history book describing the empire of the ancient Egyptians – and dragged his desk chair to the fireside, where she could curl up beneath the blanket, stay warm, and occupy her mind.

She'd just started reading an overview of the Middle Kingdom when Thomas returned, looking only slightly furtive. He closed the door behind himself, sat on the edge of the bed, looked at Meg, and sighed. Then his eyes fell on the book in her hands.

"That's a history book," he said.

"Yes, I know. Ancient Egypt. Gods and pharaoh, pyramids and wars. Same story, different tune."

"You can read?"

"Well, I need help with some of the longer words, but I mostly get by with anything that possesses less than four syllables," she said sharply.

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that you shouldn't be able to read, just because you're a..."

"Woman of negotiable affection?"

"It's just been my experience that women, in general, have little need to learn the skill. It shouldn't surprise me that you can read. You're obviously a woman of great intelligence. Did you teach yourself, or did you have a governess to teach you?"

"Neither," she said. The urge to tell him the truth was overwhelming, but she did not know why. Perhaps because she was proud that she could read. Proud of what she had achieved, despite the crap-heap that life had thrown at her. "When I was seven, my father cut off my hair and forced me to pass as a boy so I could work the docks and earn us a living. I decided to make the most of my situation, so sometimes, when my father was passed out with drink for the whole day, and there was little work to be had at the docks, I would beg off, and go to the petty school. I couldn't get into a grammar school, so once a week I would run errands for an alchemist, and in return he would spend half a day teaching me to read and write, and he taught me my numbers. And I kept doing that, even when I became a... woman of negotiable affection. I made the time for it."

"I'm impressed," he said. "A woman who can read, and write, and knows arithmetic... you should be doing something more with your life."

She laughed. "Something more? There _is_ nothing more. A woman needs money, before she can do anything. But before she can do anything, she needs money. She either has to be born to it, or marry in to it. I was born to seamstress and a drunkard, and what little money I have came from neither of them. As for the latter; I am a whore. I know how the story of my life will go, and I know where I'm destined for when the final chapter ends."

"Do you honestly believe that you have no worth?"

She smiled, and tossed the book to him, then pulled the blanket closer around her body. "Of course I have worth. I know exactly what I am worth. Two crowns, three shillings, for one night. And I can tell you honestly, that's not so bad. I might get a shilling of it, next fortnight, but three or four of you in a week will see my up by eight shillings two weeks from now. Any other woman would be lucky to earn even a quarter of that."

"I admire your pragmatism," he said. "And I'm sorry for tonight. My daughter, Grace... she thinks monsters live under her bed."

"There's no such thing as monsters."

"Try telling _her_ that. Normally it wouldn't have taken so long to convince her that I'd scared them all out, but she had... questions."

"_Who is that strange naked lady and what are you doing with her?_" she guessed.

He gave her a small smile which didn't quite reach his blue eyes. "I told her you are one of papa's new friends, and that you were helping me check the bed for monsters," he said weakly. "I hope I haven't made things confusing for her."

"Should I go?" she asked. She didn't want to; the room was warm, the blanket was soft, and she'd get in trouble if George knew she'd left before morning. But she knew she may no longer be welcome in the house.

"No, I'd like you to stay." The smile he gave her was genuine, and it warmed his face and made that fluttery feeling return to her stomach. "I was enjoying myself, before we were interrupted."

"Me too."

"No, you weren't," he said. "I could see it in your eyes. You weren't even in the room anymore."

She frowned at his accusation. Nobody had ever paid attention to her eyes before, and certainly never mid-congress. Suddenly she felt naked and bare despite the blanket wrapped around her body.

"Are you calling me a liar?" she scowled.

"I suppose I am. And I can understand why you do it. Why you don't want to be here. Why you just want to lie there with minimal response and let your mind disappear somewhere else."

"And that offends you?"

"More... disappoints me."

Her eyes narrowed, the prickly feeling of irritation flaring up inside her, pushing away the butterflies trying to force their way out of her stomach. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'd just expected something... more. You're a beautiful woman, Meg. You're intelligent and learned, and as fierce as a tigress. I wasn't expecting you to behave like a lifeless corpse."

"How dare you!" she hissed, standing up, her anger forcing her to motion. She clasped the blanket closed around her; a poor substitute for the shadows. "You have no right to judge me, or to judge anything I do!"

"I disagree. I've paid for your company until morning. I think that gives me the right to speak my mind. Why are you so angry and defensive? Should I not speak to you? Should I just use you for my own satisfaction and then send you on your way? Would that be better?"

"Yes," she snapped. "Because at least I can handle that. At least I know where I stand."

He leant back a little on the bed, looking at her, weighing her up with his gaze. She hated him, then, for even _trying_ to judge her. Didn't he realise, it was pointless? She was a whore. No matter what he said or did, she was always going to be a whore. It was the only thing she knew how to be.

"Normally," he said calmly, "I would return damaged goods immediately. But I think there's enough of you left to be salvaged. I think that you are worth fixing."

"Is that what I am?" she spat. "Broken? Some trinket to be fixed, so you can pat yourself on the back for your great humanitarian accomplishment?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Should we find out?"

Despite the anger and the affront she felt, she laughed. She was in the presence of a madman. "If you think it's worth _anything_ to try and 'fix' a broken whore, then you have your priorities all wrong. You might want to visit a physician."

He stood up and approached her, taking hold of her shoulders and pulling her into an embrace, wrapping his strong arms around her. "It's okay," he whispered. "I don't know what broke inside you, but I'm going to do everything I can to fix you."

She tried to pull away, to curse him and tell him that she didn't want, or need, his help. That she didn't want, or need, to be fixed. All she wanted was to be left alone, with her pain and her anger and her guilt. She tried to tell him that she didn't deserve to be a whole person; she didn't deserve to have happiness and joy, because she had been silent witness to so much suffering. She tried, but her body refused to move. Her mouth refused to open. The curses failed to roll off her tongue. She found that she could not lie. Not to him. All she could do was stand there, letting him hold her, wondering how she was going to find a way out of this.

* * *

_Author's Note: Admission time. I'm terrible at writing sex scenes. I normally avoid them like the plague. Surprisingly, I didn't hate how this one turned out. This chapter ended up longer than I had originally intended, but as long as it needed to be. Hope you didn't find it too cringe-worthy._


	4. Flight

Forsaken

_4. Flight_

Meg's eyes fluttered open. It was still dark outside, but something had woken her from her sleep. She stretched her hand across to the other side of the bed, feeling for the person who should have lain there, but it was empty. Concerned, she sat up, straining her eyes in the near-darkness as she looked around the room. That's when she heard the noise again.

Sliding out of bed, she made her way to the curtains, opening them to the full light of the early September moon. The room was flooded with a silvery glow, and she saw the unmistakable form of Clara, bending over the pail on the floor as she sicked up into it. Meg made her way to her friend, crouching beside her and rubbing her back whilst making noises of sympathy, like a mother would for her child. At last Clara knelt up, running a hand across her eyes, which were watering from the effort of being sick.

Meg helped her friend back into the bed, pulling the covers up over her as Clara shivered.

"I must have eaten something that didn't agree with me," the younger woman said.

"Clara," Meg said, keeping her voice purposefully soft, "this is the sixth morning in two weeks you've been sick before breakfast. I don't think what you eat causes this. I think you are with child."

"But I can't be." Clara's big brown eyes began to water again, for a different reason this time.

"When was the last time you bled?"

Clara shook her head. "I can't remember. But I don't want to have a child. I would make a terrible mother."

"Shh." Meg pulled her friend into a hug, holding her close until she stopped shaking as much. "It's okay. You can't be very far along. You're not showing, and you're still being sick. After breakfast we will go to the wise-woman, and she can give you herbs, to shake the baby loose."

Clara pulled away from her, a look of horror on her face. "What? I can't kill my baby! Killing a child, even one as yet unborn, is a terrible sin!"

"But Clara, you know what will happen if you don't."

She wouldn't be the first mother-to-be that George had thrown out of the house. _This isn't a nursery,_ he'd said, the last time he'd done it. A pregnant woman was useless to him, unable to work and too expensive to feed.

"I know," Clara replied. "And I know I'll have to leave, at least until the baby is born. But until then, until I start showing, I can still work. I can save up all of my allowance, and when I have to leave, I can rent a little room somewhere, and support myself until the baby's born. I'll find somebody to take it in, and then I can come back."

"And if George finds out before then?"

"He won't," Clara said. Her fear had gone, replaced with determination. Meg knew there was no chance of her going to the wise-woman to try and lose the child. "I'm never sick, other than during the morning, and like you said, I'm not showing yet. For a while I can hide it. For three or four months, maybe more, I can keep working, keep earning. Whilst I have life left in me, I won't kill my unborn child."

"Alright," Meg acquiesced. She didn't agree with her friend's decision, but she respected it. In Clara's place, she would not have had the strength to go through with a pregnancy and birth. She would have been at the wise-woman's door as soon as the sun graced the sky. But Clara was stronger than that. "I'll help you," she continued. "I'll save up as much as I can, and you can have my allowance, to help you through the times when you can't work."

"Meg, I can't ask that from you," said Clara. Her eyes were shining with unshed tears illuminated by the moonlight.

"You don't have to ask. Like you said before; we're family. You're like a sister to me, Clara. And I will do anything, anything at all, to help you get through this. Just as I know you would help me."

"Thank you, Meg."

Clara gave her a tight squeeze, and then settled down in bed to try and sleep through what remained of the early morning. Meg curled herself up beside her friend, but sleep did not come as easily to her. She was willing to do whatever it took to get Clara through her pregnancy, even if that meant going without an allowance for months. But once the child was born... she wasn't sure that Clara would be able to give the baby up. The woman's mothering instinct was strong, at times, and most women tended to fall to pieces over babies. If Clara wouldn't give the baby up, Meg knew she would lose her sister forever.

The thoughts lay heavily on her mind during breakfast, as she watched Clara force down a bowl of porridge, and they were still on her mind as she lay in Thomas Litton's bed twelve hours later.

She was naked, the blankets of the bed covering the bottom half of her body as she lay on her stomach, a book propped up on a the pillow in front of her. It was a book about the Roman empire, and ordinarily she would have found it quite interesting, but now her mind was still dwelling on Clara's... predicament. She just couldn't shake the unease she felt over the whole situation.

"When are you going to let me see it?" she asked, not taking her eyes from the book.

"You can't rush an artist," Thomas replied.

She turned her head to glance at him. He was sitting in his desk chair, shirtless and barefoot, clad only in his breeches. A book of thick paper was open and resting against one raised knee, a stick of charcoal in his right hand. The _scratch scratch scratch_ of the charcoal on paper was the only sound to be heard, apart from her own breathing. On his face, made more visible by the fact that he'd bound his hair back behind his head, was a light frown of concentration.

"You're not an artist," she told him. "You're a merchant, pretending to be an artist."

"Or maybe I'm an artist, pretending to be a merchant." He glanced up at her, a smile on his lips which was reflected in his blue eyes.

"Perhaps I should be the judge of that. I would like to see it."

"Alright," he agreed. "But it's not finished."

She sat up in bed, pulling one of the blankets around her bare upper body as he made his way over. Once a week, for four weeks, he'd made her lie in his bed reading a book whilst he sketched a picture of her. He rarely drew for more than an hour or two, adding to the picture each time, but now she was finally curious enough to ask to see his work.

He sat beside her on the bed and lowered the book of paper. It was like looking at herself through somebody else's eyes. Through _his_ eyes. The woman in the picture was quite beautiful; her long brown hair flowed down her upper body, framing her face as she looked at the book, a secret smile curling the corners of her generous lips. The candlelight cast shadows on her face, highlighting some of her features, softening others.

She gave him an amused snort. "That looks nothing like me."

"I disagree. And since I'm the artist, my opinion is the only one that counts, at least regarding this matter."

"Very well, as a humble whore, I bow to your superior experience."

"Humble?" he chuckled. "Is that what you think you are?"

She didn't bother dignifying that with a response. Instead, she closed the history book in front of her and dropped it onto the bedside table, sensing his was finished with his drawing for the night. He treated his artist book a little more reverentially, stowing both it and the charcoal inside his desk drawer before slipping under the covers beside her.

"There's something on your mind," he said. "Tell me about it."

"So now you're a mystic?" she asked, one eyebrow arching up.

"No, but I can see it in your eyes."

She sighed, and propped her head on her hand so she could lie on her side and look at him. The last thing she wanted was to bring her problems into his bedroom, but he _had_ asked, and it wasn't as if she had anybody else to talk to about this. Beside, as a man, he might be able to offer a new perspective. Perhaps even a solution.

"My friend, Clara, is with child," she said.

"Give her my congratulations."

"Congratulations?" She frowned. "She needs your commiserations and your condolences, not congratulations."

"Oh? And why's that?"

"When George finds out, he will kick her out of the house. She will have no way of working, and of supporting herself. And she refuses to go to a wise-woman to get herbs to make her lose the baby."

"Perhaps she could go to the church. They will feed her, and when the infant is born, they will take it in. They are always willing to take in foundlings, to raise them amongst the clergy."

"I fear she might not want to give up the child, once it has been born," she admitted unhappily.

"Would that be so bad? A child deserves its mother."

"Only in this case, the mother is a whore, she doesn't know who the father is, and without the support of a family or a husband – of which she has neither – she cannot possibly afford to feed herself, much less her babe."

"This has really upset you, hasn't it?" he asked. His face was marred by a frown of concern.

"Of course it has. Clara is like a sister to me. The last thing I want is to see her hurt."

"If you truly care about her, then try and convince her to go to the church. God will provide."

Irritation prickled inside her stomach. "God has not provided _anything_ so far. Why would he start now?" And then, before he could speak, "God does not care for women like us. He abandoned us long ago."

"God only abandons us after we abandon him," he said.

Meg couldn't help it. She laughed. "Now you really _do_ sound like a priest."

"My uncle was a priest," he admitted. "His words, and God, helped pull me through some dark times."

"But you are not a whore," she countered.

"And you are not as undeserving of God's love as you think."

There was nothing she could say to that. He didn't know her. Not really. He didn't know the things she had done, and the things she was capable of doing. Had he known, he would not have shared his bed with her. He would not have let her into his house. He would not let her within a hundred miles of his daughter. Had he known who she truly was, he would have sent for the Watch and watched her swing.

He smiled, believing he had won the discussion, and lifted a hand to her face, holding her head as he brought his lips to hers and extracted a long, slow kiss from her. Immediately, all thoughts of Clara and the gallows evaporated from her mind. Tiny jolts of pleasure began to travel down her spine, causing her toes to tingle and curl. It was amazing how quickly he could have that effect on her, how easily he could cause all other thoughts to flee her mind. All it took was one look, one kiss, one touch.

The one night a week he paid for her services had a strange duality to them. He was determined to show her that intimacy did not have to be a bad thing. As he put it, _you've had sex more times than I want to know, but you've never made love_. Their meetings were never the same frenzied, desperate liaisons her other customers subjected her to. Sometimes they didn't have sex at all; sometimes they merely lay beside each other, their bodies pressed close, dozing until true sleep took them. And during the times when Thomas wanted something more, he went slowly, carefully, teasing her body, extracting gasps of anticipation and pleasure from her lips.

There always came a point when her mind shut down and she travelled into herself, but thanks to his patient ministrations, that point was growing further and further away each time. Now, when his hands caressed her bare skin, she didn't automatically sink into the shadows, into the fortress of safety she had built for herself. Now, she could let him touch her, and plant kisses on her body; often, he liked to look into her eyes as he used his hands to slowly explore her body. He liked to see the little expressions of excitement, of longing, of pleasure, on her face. It wasn't easy, though. Once a week he tried to undo the old habits she forced herself into when she had to visit any _other_ customer, and sometimes it felt like every time he carried her one step forward, she was pushed two steps back.

The strange duality came not from him, but from her. Thomas made her heart flutter. Thoughts of him were enough to make her light-headed. She looked forward to their weekly meetings, and relished every moment they spent together. She tried so hard to please him, so hard to keep herself there in the room with him, so hard to show him that he was having an effect on her. But at the same time, she recognised the danger that lay down that path. The part of her that had been hurt time and time again, that reacted more as a wounded animal than as a thinking, feeling person, tried desperately to pull away from all that Thomas offered. That part of her spoke to her in an insidious voice, telling her things she already knew but was trying to forget. Men could not be trusted, it told her. The moment she let a man in to her place of shadows, he would hurt her. It was in a man's nature to do so. Besides, she was a whore. Despite what he thought about her beauty, she would never be anything more than a whore to him. There would come a time when he found some wealthy noble's daughter to marry, and he would stop needing her services. He was only doing this to make himself feel important and needed until something better came along.

The wounded animal always won, in the end, because it was what had kept her alive all these years, and one could not discard their survival instinct so easily. Besides, she still needed it for her other customers, and each one of them vindicated the animal's words. Thomas was a man. He would eventually turn, just like the others. Civility was a façade, a thin veneer over the carnal beast lurking beneath.

This time was no exception. As the heat began to build between them, as her body began to ache for him, he pulled off his breeches, and his lips met hers in a passion-filled kiss as he prepared to enter her. And whilst she stood on the edge of that precipice, her body crying out for the completion of his, the darkness opened up inside her, and she stepped into the cold tunnel. Her body felt exhilaration but her mind was terrified at how close she had come to _wanting_ him. She fled down the tunnel, growing colder with each step, her bare feet pattering on the cold floor. She ran until she tripped, and then she went tumbling into the shadows she kept in her mind to cloak herself. But this time, the shadows didn't want her. They rejected her, spat her out into some other world inside herself.

_She rolled along the floor, into a pile of sharp dry autumn leaves, and simply lay still for a moment, breathing deeply, recovering from her flight from her own body. The world was upside down when she opened her eyes, so she pushed herself up, crawling out of the pile of leaves which had cushioned her landing. They clung to her hair and her thin white linen dress, scratching at her skin, and she plucked them off herself, only noticing when she dropped them on the ground that they were dry holly leave, and where they had pricked into her skin had left tiny bleeding puncture marks._

_ Shivering, she hugged herself, and looked around. It was a sparse woods, as might be found on the outskirts of any park, and all around her the trees were shedding their orange-brown leaves, a layer of them littering the ground. Despite the leaves, she knew she was on a path; she could tell because of the cobbles. When she looked behind, however, there was no path. It simply began where she stood, and continued into the distance._

_ There seemed to be no other way out of this place, so she set off walking. The breeze was chilly, blowing her loose hair into her eyes with every step, making it difficult to see. When she felt something prick the soles of her feet she stopped and cursed, turning her foot up and finding a small dry holly leaf sticking into her skin. She pulled it out, but looking ahead she saw the whole road was littered with them. To get out of this place she would have to walk across them, or leave the road and set out through the trees to wade through the deeper piles of leaves without the benefit of a road to follow. She knew from experience that she would not get back to her body until well after the sex had finished, or until she could find a door to take her back._

_ There was no other way around it. She would have to walk the path of leaves. So that's what she did, one step at a time, making slow progress because each time she took a step she had to stop and rid her feet of the holly leaves which clung to her. When the torturous road finally ended she very nearly heaved a sigh of relief; but then she saw where she was._

_ The church was a small building of grey stone, with stained-glass windows depicting Bible characters – probably saints, though she didn't know which ones – and a heavy bronze bell just about visible in the belfry. There was a graveyard in front of the building, a small cemetery with a dozen moss-covered headstones, the words written upon them no longer legible, weathered away by time. Meg stopped by one of them, trying to trace the letters with her fingers, but it was pointless. They were simply too faded._

_ A sound from the church made her freeze and look up. The front doors were creaking open, a brilliant white light spilling out from them which was painful to behold, yet she could not draw her eyes away from it. The light, despite its brightness, was warm and comforting; she could feel it even from this distance, and she knew that salvation lay within those doors. She stood up and took a step forward, trying to peer into the church, to see what lay inside, what awaited her if she was brave enough and foolish enough to step into the light._

_ The doors were cast open as wide as they would go, and the bell started to toll in the tower. One. Two. Three times it pealed. Meg felt her heart beating faster. There was a sense of urgency to those rings, and she knew she didn't have much time._

_ Four. Five. Six. She looked around, for any other signs of life, for somebody to tell her what to do. But there was no-one. She was alone, as she had always been, with only herself to guide her._

_ Seven. Eight. Nine. Hurry, hurry, hurry, was what the bells seemed to say, but she did not take another step forward. She did not trust the light, nor the warmth it offered her. Nothing God offered was given freely. There was always the worm. Always the hook. Go to church. Don't sin. Sing psalms and give alms. The heavenly father wanted undying love and obedience, but what had he done for her? He was just another man who had screwed her over and abandoned her._

_ She turned her face away from the light that she could not accept and knew, deep down in the barest reaches of her soul, she did not deserve. The light was a fallacy. A lure. Something to draw her in so that she could be punished for her wickedness and her sins._

_ The bell tolled its last. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. The doors began to close, and the light began to fade. The warmth disappeared from the air, leaving her chilled once more. She heard the doors closed, but did not look back. She would not have seen anything anyway, through the tears that welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks._

_ Knowing where the road was, she set off back to it, but she hadn't made it three paces before her next step ended with her foot stepping on nothing but thin air. With her weight and forward-momentum she was powerless to stop herself from falling forward, into the darkness of the open grave._

She landed back in her body, awareness returning. The now-familiar ceiling of Thomas Litton's bedroom greeted her, candle-shadows dancing across it. From beside she felt Thomas staring, and then he was looking down at her with an expression of concern.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"Why would you think that?" she asked.

"Because you're crying."

She lifted a hand to her cheek and felt wetness there, and used the palm of her hand to dry her eyes as best she could. "I'm fine," she lied. "Just a little overwhelmed with everything. You, Clara, the baby..."

"Ah," he said. He didn't push the subject any further. He merely lay down and pulled her into his arms, wrapping one around her shoulders so she could lay her head against his chest. "It will seem better in the morning," he said, his mind already half way to sleep.

Meg pulled the blankets up higher, trying to cover her whole body. She knew she wouldn't sleep. Not tonight. And for the first time since she had met Thomas, she found herself unable to get warm in his presence. A chill had settled over her flesh, and it simply refused to leave.

* * *

_Author's Note: Lots of people have religious experiences during sexual intercourse. Stick with me, and you'll see what I mean._

_Err, that wasn't a flirtation._


	5. The Bargain

Forsaken

_5. The Bargain_

It was Michaelmas, the last day of September and the third Quarter Day of the year. The day when the feast of Saint Michael, the Archangel, was observed, when men and women attended church, and the end of the harvest season. Already the smell of cooking goose was drifting through the house, filling every room with the promise of the plentiful feast that would come at night-fall.

Meg opened her eyes, and for a long moment simply lay in her bed, trying to push away the images that plagued her mind. For weeks now, her dreams had been haunted by nightmares, by dark pictures which were like flashbacks of her life; her mother lying on her deathbed; her sister's body, bloated in the Thames; her father standing over her bed. And yet whenever she closed her eyes in her dreams or looked away from those scenes, the small, stone church was waiting for her, sitting in judgement over her, its windows filled with beautiful light but its doors now closed to her forever.

The dreams came most nights, now, regardless of whether she was alone in bed, curled up with Clara, or in the company of Thomas or one of her other clients. In an effort to avoid them she tried desperately to stay awake, but they inevitably found her, and once they had her within their lifeless grasp they did not let her go until well past dawn. Now, glancing at the sun shining in through the curtains, she could tell she had overslept again, that it was not far from noon.

Her bad dreams were not the only reason she'd had difficulty sleeping last night. At some point during the early hours of the morning, a terrible heat had settled over the city. Meg, who was lying next to the soundly-sleeping Clara, had broken out in a sweat, and thrown the blankets off herself to try and cool her body down. When that hadn't worked she'd opened the window to the street below, ignoring the smells which now had access to the room, and lain in bed feeling tired, hot, and thoroughly miserable. Sleep had finally taken her, but it had not been a restful experience.

Now, the laughter of children on the street below her window broke her out of her reverie, and she sat up in bed, trying to ignore the way her nightgown clung damply to her sweat-soaked body. Craving fresh air – or at least, air as fresh as you could possibly find in central London, right beside a tanner's yard and only a few streets away from the Thames – she went to the window and stuck her head out. It did little to cool her, however. There was no breeze in the air today, and the smell of waste in the gutter below was as foul as it was in high-summer.

At least she would not have to work tonight. George might be a cold-hearted, money-pinching slave-driver, but at least he was a _religious_ cold-hearted, money-pinching slave-driver. None of his girls had to work on Quarter Days or festival days, unless they wanted to. Usually they looked forward to the time off together, to the good food and cask of ale provided by their 'generous' employer. George, meanwhile, would be rubbing elbows at the table of the most wealthy person whose company he could weasel his way into.

It was, Meg decided, time to dress and help the other girls with the feast for tonight. Eight women in one house meant there was no shortage of hands to help out, but it did mean more mouths to feed. And unbeknownst to everybody but Clara and Meg, there was an _extra_ mouth to feed, this time. Clara had not started showing her pregnancy yet, and she had thankfully stopped sicking up, but she was starting to get cravings for certain foods. At the moment it was mint, which at least meant their bedroom smelt nice, but Meg was concerned that very soon, people would start to notice that Clara was putting on a little weight around her tummy.

She walked back to the bed, to shake out and air the blankets, and stubbed her toe on something underneath the wooden bed frame. She cursed quietly, hopping on one foot as she clutched her aching big toe. And when the pain subsided enough for her to put her foot back down, she reached under the bed for the offending item, fully expecting to find the pail. Instead, her fingers touched something heavy and wooden, and she used both hands to grasp it and pull it out.

It was a small trunk, the likes of which were used for carrying around personal effects. She felt her brows lower into a frown. Why was there a trunk beneath her bed? As far as she knew, none of the girls possessed one. So how had it got here? Deciding there was only one way to find out, she lifted the trunk onto the bed and unfastened the clasps. The lid opened to reveal dresses and petticoats, a pair of brown shoes and, on top of it all, the looking-glass she and Clara had bought. It was glass-side down, and the mother of pearl angel seemed to glitter at her maliciously.

A cold spot grew in the pit of Meg's stomach as the implication of the trunk hit her with force. There could be only one reason why Clara had packed a trunk; she was leaving. But... why?! She wasn't even showing, yet! How could she do this and not speak to Meg about it first? She'd thought they were friends. Family. Sisters. And sisters did not keep secrets from each other. Not like this.

The sound of somebody coming up the stairs reached her ears, and she hastily shut the trunk, throwing one of the bed blankets over it because she knew she wouldn't have time to lift it back down to the floor. Barely a heartbeat later, Clara came into the room, a smile lighting up her face when she saw Meg sitting on the far side of the bed.

"Good morning, Meg, I thought you'd never wake up!"

"I guess I just had a fitful night's sleep," Meg said weakly. The coldness in her stomach would not go away; it made her feel tight inside, all knotty and a little queasy.

"Well, now that you're up, would you like to come with me to the market? We need more turnips than we have in the pantry."

Meg looked at her friend's open, happy face, and realised she couldn't do this. She couldn't pretend that everything was okay, that it was just life as normal. She threw back the blanket revealing the chest. Clara's eyes went straight to it, the smile fading from her face, her skin turning a shade paler.

"What is this, Clara?" she asked. She opened the trunk and took out the mirror, holding it up for Clara to see before placing it on the bed. She did the same with the pair of shoes and one of the dresses. "It looks like you're planning on going somewhere."

"I was going to tell you." Clara's words came out as little more than a whisper.

"Tell me what?"

The younger woman picked up the looking-glass and ran her hands over the cool lacquer and shell back. She was silent for a moment as she walked towards the window, her eyes turned inward as she ran through everything in her mind. Meg waited with as much patience as she could bear; it wouldn't do to get angry at Clara. The woman was suffering mood swings brought on by the pregnancy. She could go from happy to weeping at the drop of a hat.

When at last Clara turned around, leaning back against the window and gripping the mirror with a tightness that belied her nerves, she spoke softly, in a tone that begged for understanding.

"Lord Ballentyne has offered to take me in," she said. "He says he'll provide for me and for my baby. He'll take it as his own. He's always wanted a son or a daughter, to inherit his estate."

"But Clara, the man hit you! He can't be trusted. None of them can!"

"That was long ago," Clara objected. "He hasn't lain a finger on me since. And now that I'm with child, he treats me like a precious jewel." A smile ghosted across her face, lighting up her brown eyes from within. "He says I'm his muse, Meg. That I inspire him to write great things."

"But I am your family."

"And you always will be. Nothing will change that. But I can't just think about myself anymore, Meg. If it was just me, I would stay here with you forever, you know that. Everything changes, when you have a child to think about. I have to do what is best for my baby, and though Lord Ballentyne is by no means a rich man, his modest wealth is more than enough to provide for myself and my child. Besides, it's very possible the baby _is_ his. He is my most frequent customer."

Meg couldn't fault her friend's logic, no matter how much she hated it. "At least promise me we'll still spend time together. Promise me you won't start turning your nose up when you see me, just because you're being kept by some Lord."

The hesitation in Clara's eyes and her posture spoke volumes, and immediately deepened the feeling of cold in the pit of Meg's stomach.

"I wish that was possible, Meg," Clara said. "But we shan't be staying in London."

"You—you'll be travelling to one of his country estates, to raise your child in privacy?" she asked, feeling sickeningly light-headed.

"No, we'll be travelling a little further afield." Clara, too, looked ill, sickened by how the conversation was going.

"France? But there's such upheaval there at the moment, or so I've heard people say. Besides, a diet of frogs legs and snails will do you no good in your condition."

"We're not going to France." Clara lifted her chin a little, and Meg knew her friend's mind was now set on this course of action no matter how rushed and foolish it was. "One of Lord Ballentyne's friends, John White, has recently been appointed Governor of an English colony in the Americas. Mr White wants Lord Ballentyne to accompany him in his next Atlantic crossing to deliver a group of colonists to the settlement a week hence, so that he can keep a written account of all that happens for their benefactor, Sir Walter Raleigh. Lord Ballentyne intends to make a home for himself at the colony... and he has asked me to go with him."

Meg put her hand down on the bed, using it to steady herself as the room spun around her. The words came tumbling out of her mouth, every excuse she could think of to stop her friend from making this terrible mistake. "But Clara, it could take months to reach the Americas, and being ship-bound will do you no good in your condition. And even if you survive the crossing, the place is a land of untamed wild and blood-thirsty savages. Think of how much danger you will be putting yourself in. How much danger you will be putting your _child_ in! Lord Ballentyne's wealth will not serve him in a place like that; you will live in poverty, trying to eke out a meagre existence."

"I know it will be hard work, especially with a newborn baby, but I will be the equal of anybody else there. They need not know what I do for a living. I will learn new skills, and my child will have a home, and a father. It will be a new beginning for me." Clara offered a smile. "Besides, I will write to you. Resupply ships will come when they can, and perhaps in a couple of years you will want to join me at Roanoke. I would dearly love to have you there."

Meg closed her eyes, squeezing back the tears that wanted to flow like rivers. She was losing the only family she had. Not just for a few weeks, or even months, but forever. If Clara got on that ship, she knew she would never see her friend again. The thought of being alone, of having no sister to talk to, of having to wake up in the mornings that she wasn't working to a cold, empty bed, made her heart squeeze with a familiar pain. Why was Clara hurting her like this? Why was she letting Meg down? Why couldn't she understand that Meg _needed_ her?

"That's never going to happen, Clara," she said. Her voice came out quiet and low, filled with a cold anger she hadn't intended but could not stop. "Unlike you, I have an ounce of common sense. The colonisation of the Americas should be left to soldiers, who can defend themselves against the savage natives, against the murderous Spanish, against all manner of wild beasts. You will reach the Americas, and you will hate it. You will hate the lack of cobbled streets, you'll hate the smells and the insects and constantly living in fear for your life. You'll be lumbered with a child and no friends to help you take care of it, and a husband too old to be useful for anything other than scribbling on his scraps of paper."

"Do you truly believe that?" Clara asked, standing up. She was angry, her body stiff, a scowl marring the beauty of her pretty face. "Or are you just jealous that I am getting out? That I won't have to degrade my body any more, just to survive?" She lifted up her hand, to chide her friend, and the mirror slipped from her grasp, falling prey to gravity, tumbling towards the floor. It hit the wooden floorboards and shattered, shards of glass flying everywhere. The lacquer back cracked, a long fissure opening up through the mother of pearl angel, little bits of shell flaking off from his mis-shapen wings.

Clara's face went white, her eyes wide. A whisper came out from her lips, "Seven years of bad luck. I need to find some salt to spill..."

"It's okay," said Meg. She was worried for her friend; she looked as if she might be sick. "Go and fetch me the sweeping brush from behind the front door, and the dustpan too. Then spill your salt and go to the market for those turnips. When you get back, all this will be gone."

Clara nodded mutely, edging around the broken glass and then leaving the room. Meg looked down at the broken mirror, and sighed. Rightfully she should be angry; that thing had cost a small fortune. But she couldn't be angry. Not when her insides were already filled with hurt and disappointment. There was simply no room for anything else.

She stepped off the bed and began picking up some of the larger pieces of glass, holding them carefully in her hand. Then she cursed as something prickled her foot. Sitting down on the bed, she turned the sole of her foot up and saw a pieces of glass piercing the skin. Wincing because it stung, she pulled the shard out and several drops of blood spattered onto the floor, leaving marks like holly berries after they had been stepped on.

When Clara returned with the brush and the dustpan, Meg took them from her and sent her friend off to the market despite her assurances that she could help. Cleaning up the mess was a one-woman job, and turnips were still needed for the Michaelmas feast. Clara left with a backwards glance of regret, and Meg started to sweep. This wasn't the first mess she had cleaned up, and she doubted it would be the last.

The dreadful heat lasted throughout the Michaelmas feast, and into the first day of October, making everybody miserable. Clara remained pale and withdrawn the day after she had broken the mirror, and Meg's concern for her friend began to grow. Clara had always been one of the most religious and superstitious of George's girls, and she seemed so sure she had earned herself seven years of bad luck for breaking the hand-mirror. But even though she was pale and jumpy, she still went to work the following night, donning the dress that Lord Ballentyne favoured, calling goodbye to the other girls as she set off at early evening.

Meg knew that her time with her friend was growing short. Clara had said that the ship with the colonists was sailing a week from the Michaelmas feast, which meant that she had only five days left in the company of the woman she had come to think of as a sister. The knowledge that Clara would be forever beyond her reach left a bitter taste in her mouth which no amount of mint tea could scour away.

Clara did not come home the following day, but that wasn't unusual. She often stayed longer with Lord Ballentyne than her other clients, and she had even more reason to do so now that he'd offered to take her in and raise her child as his own. That, too, left a bitter taste in Meg's mouth. Ballentyne was old, and often lecherous. How any woman could happily lie with him, much less tolerate sharing her life with him, was beyond her comprehension. Clara must be desperate indeed, to resort to this.

That evening, Meg was busy chopping vegetables in the kitchen for the stew she was cooking over the fire. She'd had a quiet week so far; just Thomas and one other customer, and none lined up for the rest of the week, which meant the cooking duties fell to her. It was something she didn't mind, because cooking was relaxing, and there was something rewarding about starting off with a basketful of plain, raw ingredients and turning them into something delicious and nourishing.

There came a knock from the door, but she ignored it. Her hands were covered in bread-flour, and she knew Sara was home to answer whoever was calling. For a few moments she concentrated on her dough, kneading it to the correct consistency, and at first she didn't clock the sound of a strange man's voice in the hallway. When she did, she frowned. Men were not supposed to come here. It was one of George's rules.

"Who is it, Sara?" she called.

There was no answer, so she kept hold of her wooden rolling pin and made her way to the door, stepping out into the hallway with the pin held ready for action. She found one of the men of the city Watch standing there, and Sara sobbing in front of him, her eyes pressed into her hands.

"What's this about?" Meg asked. She lowered the rolling pin, but did not loosen her grip.

"Like I was telling your friend, I am looking for George Moore."

"He's not here," Meg said. "He comes around twice a week with a delivery of food and customer lists, but otherwise leaves us to our business. Why are you looking for him? Is he in trouble?"

"No, _he's_ not." There was a note of boredom in the man's voice which rankled Meg. "We've found a body down by the docks. One of the local shopkeepers says it's one of George's girls. I need George to come and identify the body so we can notify any kin and arrange a burial."

A familiar cold knot settled in Meg's stomach. Her hands worked automatically to remove the apron around her neck. The words came out without her having to think about them. "I don't know where George is, but I will come and identify the body for you."

"Meg, no, you shouldn't!" Sara said. Her grey eyes were puffy, her cheeks wet. She bit at one of her already badly-bitten nails. Meg understood how she felt. Six girls were gone from the house, and if none of the shop-keepers had been able to identify the body, that meant it must be in a poor condition. George's girls were hardly strangers to the area; most of them had lived here their whole lives.

"Somebody has to," she replied. She gave the apron and the rolling pin to Sara. "Stay here. Cook dinner. If any of the others return, tell them the news but do not let them leave. Not until we know who... and why... it might be dangerous for them, out there."

Sara nodded, and Meg stepped out of the door, following the watchman from the tanner's yard.

The journey was a surreal dream. She noticed little things. The flies on the horse dung were deafeningly loud as they buzzed, a cruel and mocking sound. Bread-flour, still caking her arms to her elbows, began to fall, leaving a trail of white behind her on the cobbles. The watchman's sword rattled in its sheathe as he walked, making him jingle melodically with every step. The eyes of the women who watched her from the shadows were particularly cold tonight, the glassy eyes of the dead fish which had once mocked her.

Thoughts licked at her mind, like a hungry fire licking at kindling. _One of the girls was dead. It couldn't be Clara. She was safe at Lord Ballentyne's home. In five days she'd be setting sail for the Americas. Her child would be born on the shores of some foreign land, or perhaps at sea. Lord Ballentyne's estate isn't even anywhere near the docks. It's in the other direction, away from the foul-smelling Thames. One of the other girls must have been jumped on her way home from a job. Perhaps Rose, or Ester, or..._

When she realised she was wishing death on women who didn't deserve it, she stopped that line of thought. Perhaps there had been a mistake. Perhaps it wasn't one of George's girls at all. Perhaps it was some unfortunate street-walker, or maybe even a noble who had fallen afoul of muggers.

When the smell of the docks filtered into her nose, she coughed and almost gagged. It had been years since she had smelt this place. The last time she had been here she had been seventeen, watching the fishermen pull her poor dead sister's body from the water. The skin all purple and bloated, the eyes removed by hungry fish, the hair all tangled with seaweed... it had been so easy to switch herself off. To look at the body and see not her sister but just another unfortunate victim of life in London. That body had not been Anne. Her sister was gone, to the fields of the Lord, where she could rest in eternal peace. It was the only place for her Anne to go. She had been a child, a pure soul despite the suffering inflicted onto her by their father.

"If you're going to throw up, try to do it in the Thames," the watchman said unsympathetically. "We got enough crap on the streets as it is."

Meg straightened up, and through sheer force of will, managed to halt her coughing. She had to breathe through her mouth to do it, but she managed it.

A crowd was waiting beside a ship called _Freedom's Bounty_. Two watchmen were already there, keeping the majority of the gawkers back. And as her guide approached the crowd parted before her, each pair of eyes looking at her, judging her. She ignored them as best they could, allowed their glances to feed the fire growing in her belly, and stepped forward. She didn't want to look, but she had to. She owed it to whoever this was to put a name to a body and give the poor woman a proper burial.

The first thing she saw was a tangle of raven locks. The face was all battered and bruised, the throat slit to reveal sinew and the pale cartilage of a broken windpipe. And around the neck was a silver chain, a small silver cross nestled in the bosom of the body.

Meg collapsed to the ground, ignoring the filth soaking into her clothes. It was Clara's hair. Clara's necklace. The body was wearing Clara's petticoat, but it couldn't be Clara, because Clara was safe, she was with Lord Ballentyne, far from the docks, far from this corpse which was wearing her hair and necklace and petticoat.

One of the watchmen crouched down beside her. She looked at his face and saw his lips move, but she could not hear his words. All she could hear was the gentle _slap slap slap_ of waves against the ship at dock. Confused, she shook her head, and spoke the words she thought the watchman wanted to hear.

"Her name's Clara Fitzgerald," she said. "She was with child."

Somebody brought a hessian sack, which was thrown over the body pretending to be Clara. Maybe... maybe it was one of the actors, from that play at the Grey Mare's inn-yard. Maybe one of them was acting. Maybe this was just all a play. Any minute now the body would stand up, the mask and the wig would come off, and the audience would clap in appreciation for the realism. And the villain, too, would be unmasked. The villain...

She turned to the watchman, heard herself say, "It's Lord Ballentyne. He was her last customer. She spent the night with him. They were supposed to be leaving for the Americas next week."

One of the watchmen trotted off, and the other remained by the body of the actor, waiting for it to rise. The third watchman, the one beside her, asked a question, and for a wonder, she could hear his words.

"Can you get back home?"

She shook her head. "I can't go home. I have to stay here and wait for the actors to start bowing."

"Come on. I'll take you back home. Can't go letting you prostitutes get murdered, can we? Never hear the end of it if that happens."

The man hauled her to her feet, and somehow her legs managed to support her. But why wasn't the body moving? Why wasn't the actor casting off the sack and taking off the mask, and revealing his true identity? She looked around at the observers, trying to spot one of the actors amongst them.

There was somebody standing at the back of the crowd, watching her. She craned her neck to see him, and found herself looking into dark brown eyes set into a well-tanned face which was framed by a neatly-trimmed beard and moustache. She had seen that face before, she was sure of it. And when she caught a glimpse of his clothing – a blue cloak trimmed in red fox fur – the memory came flooding back, taking her away from the docks and to the green open fields of Kennington Park, where she had seen him in the reflection of her now-broken mirror.

"Come on now, no sense dawdling."

The watchman turned her away from the crowd and the stranger who watched her, and led her back along the dock and up onto the main street. She did not remember the journey back. All she remembered was being in her bed, and feeling devastatingly alone for the first time since Anne had died.

The image of Clara's body would not leave her mind. The thought of her friend lying there, cold and alone, praying for help that would never come, made her feel weak. The thought that somebody had _done_ this to her, and left her there, made her feel angry. They fought each other for dominance, the weakness and the anger, duelling each other inside the pit of her stomach. To Meg it felt as if a ball of hot anger and cold horror had taken up residence inside her. They filled her stomach, feeling like a hard knot inside her, and spread throughout her body, flooding every part of her with anger and pain. She felt it rising up from within, seeping into her mind, poisoning her like a gangrene of the soul. Lying in her bed, she thought that nobody had ever felt such anger and despair as she.

And then she was sick. All the anger and despair was drained as she vomited out the poison that tried to drown her from within. Three or four times she was sick into the pail, despite the fact that she hadn't eaten in... well, she had no idea. The long minutes of misery seemed to blend into each other. She didn't know whether she had been alone in bed for hours or days. Nor did she care.

She felt a little better, after vomiting. The sickness clawing at her mind and her soul was almost gone, replaced instead by a more familiar emotion; hatred. And it was aimed at Lord Ballentyne. He had killed Clara, though she couldn't imagine why. Hadn't he claimed to love her? Hadn't he claimed he wanted a child? Hadn't she been his muse? Meg could not understand the reasoning behind his actions, but she didn't need to. He was a man, and thus was subject to his primitive yearnings. Perhaps Clara had spilt something again. Perhaps she'd sicked up in his bed. Perhaps she'd been brazen enough to ask for things for herself and her child. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter. Ballentyne would swing from the gallows, and she would be there to see it.

Some time after the vomiting, Sara came up, her eyes still red and her cheeks tear-stained. She brought a bowl of broth and a crust of bread on a tray, but the smell of food made Meg feel sick again. There was only one thing Meg wanted; news.

"Have they arrested Lord Ballentyne?" she asked.

Sara hesitated, then put the tray down on top of the chest of drawers. "No. The Watch talked to him, but he said Clara left in the early hours of the morning, and when she went she was in good humour but eager to get back here and finish packing. He said they'd arranged to meet again two nights before the ship was due to leave for the voyage, but that was the last he saw of her. The Watch... they think she was mugged for her valuables. They took her coin purse, her dress... even her shoes."

Meg felt the anger flare again. Clara was not mugged for her valuables. Thieves did not take a pair of shoes, but leave behind a silver necklace. Thieves had no reason to beat a woman until her face was an unrecognisable mess. Thieves didn't cut throats, because once you'd killed a mark, you couldn't rob from them again. Thieves and murderers rarely ran in the same circles; she knew from experience.

Sara disappeared back down stairs, leaving Meg alone to carefully nurture her hatred. She could see it clearly in her mind; Lord Ballentyne, suffering again and again, swinging from the gallows, drawn and quartered, burnt on a pyre, head lopped off by the guillotine, weighted down in the Thames... she invented countless ways of watching him die, making him suffer, just as Clara had suffered. Her one regret was that she wouldn't be able to do _all_ of them, that once she had found a way to kill Ballentyne for what he had done, she wouldn't be able to bring him back, to do it again.

The sky darkened and then lightened, and it was on its way to darkening again when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. George came into the room, wrinkling his nose at the smell of vomit in the pail, and ignored it as he stepped towards the bed.

"Come on," he said, pulling the blankets off her, exposing her body to the slightly cooler air which was still unnaturally hot for this time of year. "Get cleaned up and dressed. You've got a new client to see."

She looked at him, and an image of her bashing his head in briefly flickered across her mind. Couldn't he see that she was grieving, in mourning for the woman who had been like a sister to her these past years? Couldn't he see that she just wanted to be left alone?

"I'm not feeling well," she said, gesturing to the pail full of vomit. "You might want to use one of the others tonight."

"Ordinarily I would, but this new patron has specifically asked for _you_, and he's paid a pound, a whole bloody pound, just to see you tonight. So you're going to put on your finest dress, do something with your hair to make it look even marginally civilised, and be ready to go within the hour, or you'll be out on the street and good riddance."

He left her no chance to argue, disappearing from the room, his heavy footsteps shaking the floor slightly as he descended the stairs. Meg forced her body to obey, not because she cared about George or any new customer, or how much someone was willing to pay to spend a night with her, but because she had to keep going. She had to keep living so that she could avenge her best friend and the unborn child that had died with her. She had to find a way to make Lord Ballentyne suffer for everything he had done.

She used some of the clean water in the nightstand to rinse her mouth and chewed on a peppermint leaf to freshen her breath. As she chewed, her body moved automatically to select one of her dresses, and she pulled a pair of slippers onto her feet. She managed to apply her white face makeup, and rouge for her cheeks and her lips, even without a mirror to look in. She had done it so many times that it was now second nature to her. And when she deemed herself finally presentable, she swallowed the mint leaf and left the bedroom.

George was waiting for her, wearing his finest clothes, his face covered in a nervous sweat. Without a word he escorted her from the building, and hurried across the tanner's yard as if the hounds of hell themselves were chasing him. He all but dragged her along the dung-ridden cobbled roads, dodging the few riders out at this time with an apologetic touch of his cap. Through the street known as the Stranda he took her, and finally onto Fleet Street, to one of the larger houses nestled in amongst the small private businesses and their associated offices.

He approached the door of the house, taking an effort to straighten his clothes and wipe the sweat from his face with a cloth kerchief. Then he knocked on the door without even giving Meg her usual 'sit still, smile, look pretty, don't talk' speech, which showed just how unnerved he was by a patron willing to pay a whole pound for a night with a whore.

The door opened, and a slightly-built man appeared, offering a slight bow. He did not speak a word as he held the door wider, and George chivvied her inside the building, respectfully removing his cap as he did so. The man who had opened the door led them down a long, carpeted hallway, all purple and gold thread, and pushed open a large wooden door at the termination of the corridor. This living room was easily twice the size of Thomas Litton's drawing room, and twice as sumptuous. Crystal-cut glasses adorned display cabinets, and elaborate paintings of hunting scenes were hung from each of the walls. There was a fire in the hearth, but all it did was allow shadows to cling to the corners of the room.

"Please, have a seat," said a voice from one such shadowy corner. George immediately led Meg to the closest settee, and pulled her down with him. "Thank you for coming so promptly." The voice was all soft tones and warm honey; it practically oozed from the dark corner, pulling at something inside Meg's stomach.

"No problem at all, Sir Lamb," said George, trying his best not to wring his cap in his hands. "I've brought the girl for you, as promised."

"And as promised, here is your payment."

The servant brought forth a coin purse, which George didn't even bother _hefting_. He merely slipped it inside the pocket of his coat and cleared his throat nervously. "Appreciated, Sir. Now, I normally say my girls have to be back for morning, especially where new clients are concerned, but I can tell you're a true gentleman, Sir Lamb, so you just keep her as long as you need her."

Meg aimed a glare a George, but he pointedly didn't look at her. He just sat there, sweating, with that ingratiating smile on his face. She wished she could wipe it off.

"How very good of you to waive your rules for me," said the voice. It sounded both genuine and patronising at the same time. "Now, if you don't mind, my man will show you out.

"Yes, of course. Good evening to you, Sir Lamb."

George was led out by the servant. Meg heard the front door open and then close again, but the servant didn't return to the room, and the man in the corner didn't say anything else. All she could do was sit there, being watched by a stranger she could not see, feeling the weight of his eyes upon her. It made her prickle inside, the irritation building on the anger which had grown over Clara's death. At last she could take it no more, and she spoke out.

"Why do you hide in the shadows?"

The voice chuckled throatily, which made her shiver, and goosebumps rose on her skin. "I could ask you the same question."

Before she could ask what he meant, he stepped out of the shadows, his brown eyes fixed on her. He was wearing a blue cloak trimmed with red fox fur, and carried a thin sword sheathed at his hip.

A gasp of surprise escaped her lips. "You," she whispered. "You were watching me at the May Day festival. And then again more recently, at the docks."

"Yes," he said. His eyes were focused on her with such intensity that it made her want to look away. No man had ever made her look away before. "And I was surprised, both times, that you saw me. Very few people can see me, when I choose to remain hidden. You are a very special person, Meg."

"Why were you watching me? What do you want with me?" she demanded, standing up so that she did not feel quite as small, quite as vulnerable.

"Good questions," he said, smiling. "As for the answers... well, I would like you to think of me as... your guardian angel."

"I don't believe in angels," she said immediately.

"And you shouldn't. They don't believe in you, either. How could they? After all, you're just one more whore to them. God and his winged minions could never understand you as I do. They could never offer you the things I offer you."

She didn't like his tone. The honey was gone, replaced with something sharper, more acrid. Here, she realised, was somebody who hated God even more than she.

"And just what are you offering?" she asked.

"Anything and everything your heart desires."

She laughed at his audacity. "You know nothing about my heart."

"Don't I?" He stepped closer, lifting his hand to her chin, turning her face to either side, so that he could examine her. "You are even more beautiful up close. You wouldn't believe how long I have searched for you, Meg."

"Searched for me?" The urge to pull herself from his touch was strong, but she overruled it. "I don't even know you."

"Not yet. But you will." He let go of her face and walked around her, looking her over from top to bottom. "I have a son, but I've always wanted a daughter. A daughter so beautiful and terrible to behold that she can break men's hearts and bodies with a single glance. I want you to be my daughter, Meg. I want to welcome you into my family. I want to give you a home, and a purpose. And the beauty of it... the beauty of you... is that you're already halfway there."

She stepped back, moving away from him, looking at him in the firelight. He was clearly mad, or possessed by some ill spirit. Rightfully she ought to run, to save herself from this madman... but he had aroused her curiosity. He spoke as if he knew her, yet that clearly couldn't be. He offered her a family, and yet she was a stranger to him.

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"Well, I'm not Sir Lamb, if that's what you're asking," he said, with a wicked grin. Then, his eyes changed. No longer a hue of dark brown, but as yellow as a cat's eyes without the slit. The cry of horror that wanted to escape her lips failed to come, so instead she backed away, into a bookshelf, her hands searching behind her blindly for anything she could use as a weapon. "No need for that," he said, seemingly reading her mind. "I would never hurt you, Meg. How could I? You are one of us."

"One of who?!" she demanded. But in her heart, she already knew the answer. There was only one manner of creature that could hate God and his angels, that could know a man's thoughts before they were even spoken.

"My name is Azazel. Your kind call me 'demon', and think me evil. But we aren't evil... not truly. We're just a different type of creature. We believe in freedom and free will. We believe that no man or woman should have to bow down to a heavenly father who cares nothing for us; who abandons us and causes us pain for no reason other than his own twisted entertainment."

"You... you're a demon?" she said. Her heart was pounding inside her chest, now. Demons were wicked spirits which infected people, made them sick, spread disease and bad feelings and tempted men into committing crimes and sins. And now she was talking to one. If it got too close, it would infect her too. But maybe it already had. It had touched her. Maybe it was too late.

"That's what I said. Come now, Meg, there's no need for this fear, this... pretence. Can we not talk like civilised individuals? All I ask is that you hear me out. If you don't like what you hear, leave, and you'll never see me again."

"Very well," she said. After all, it couldn't hurt to listen, could it? "But no tricks!"

"I wouldn't dream of it. And no tricks from you either, if you don't mind."

She nodded, and he gestured to one of the settees. With some reticence, she took her former seat, and watched as he sat down in the chair opposite.

"I am going to be honest with you, Meg," he said. His yellow eyes seemed to bore into her. "You are not going to lead a happy life. What you are, the things you've done... there is only one place your soul is going when you die."

"I've always known that," she said numbly. But to think it herself, and to hear a demon confirm it, were two entirely different things.

"Of course you have," he smiled. "I've come here to make you an offer. Hell is a terrible place, where people are tortured for eternity. But it doesn't have to be like that. Not for you. I've come here to make a deal with you."

"What kind of a deal?" she asked warily. She knew that to make a deal with the devil incurred a terrible price, but would a deal with a demon cost the same?

"I can give you ten glorious years of life. Whatever your heart desires. Even if it's something you thought impossible. That man who makes your heart flutter... how would you like to marry him? You could have great years together. Perhaps you could even bear him a child."

"A child?" She had never thought about children of her own before. She could never have provided for one. But if she was married to Thomas, and could produce him a son or a daughter...

"Yes," Azazel purred. "Right now, you're incapable of having children. Did you not think it odd, that you worked for so many years as a whore, and yet never got with child even once?" She shook her head mutely, barely even seeing his yellow eyes now. "All those things your dear papa did to you, when you were so young... you are damaged, inside, destined to live a barren life. But it doesn't have to be that way. I can give you happiness. I can give you a child with the man who makes that body of yours all hot and bothered. Hell, it doesn't have to end with one. Three kids, four, one every year. It's all do-able."

"And in return?" she asked, swallowing the lump in her throat.

"Like I said, ten happy years. After that, your soul belongs to me. You come with me, and you be my daughter. You join my family." He leant forward, his yellow eyes heated as he looked at her. "It's a good deal, Meg. Your soul is bound for Hell anyway. You can't out-run your past. Come with me and it will happen a little sooner, but I can save you _years_ of being tortured. Like I said, you're already halfway there. It won't take much before you're _truly_ one of us. And, as I mentioned before, I can give you what you most desire."

"And what is that?" She could tell by the look in his eyes that he already knew.

"I know what you did to your papa. I know what became of his body."

_The memory flashed before her eyes, brought to the surface by Azazel's presence._

_It was night-time, three days after Anne's death. Meg had finally stopped crying. For the first time in her life, she knew pure hatred. It ignited inside her, burning hotter than fire. Anne's death was her father's fault. He had driven her to this. He might as well have pushed her into the Thames himself. He was the reason Meg was alone now. Well, nearly alone._

_She went into the kitchen. The carving knife was there. She took it by its handle and went to her father's room. This was just like in her dreams._

_He was asleep on the bed, passed out in a stupor. This dirty, filthy, beast of a man had defiled his daughters, forced one of them into prostitution and driven the other to suicide. And he got away with it, because nobody cared about what a drunkard did to his daughters. They were little people in a big city, and the only people who saw them were the men who wanted flesh for money._

_She lifted up the knife. It didn't twinkle in the moonlight, as it had in her dreams, but it cut just the same. She plunged it with all the force she could manage into her father's chest. She heard his ribs snap, felt the blade slide through his lungs, and it pierced his heart. His eyes flew open, he cried out in pain, blood and spume frothing from his mouth. She pulled out the knife and stabbed again and again. Long after he had stopped screaming, she kept stabbing, until his chest was naught but tattered ribbons, his ribs cut bare to the bone._

_When the frenzy finally left her she collapsed into a heap. The blood, so warm when it had spattered her face, was now cold, and the room smelt foul, of alcohol and offal. For a long time she looked at the body of the slain beast, only a single thought repeating inside her mind. "I am free."_

_But free as she was, she was left with a problem. Her father's body was too large for her to move on her own, and she didn't trust anybody enough to help her with this task. Even if she managed to get the body to the Thames and throw it in, there was no guarantees it would sink. Nothing tended to stay buried in the river for long._

_At last she came up with a solution. It took her two days, but finally she had finished dismembering the body, stuffing the chunks of flesh and bone into old turnip sacks. She waited for nightfall before acting. She dragged the sacks one by one to the abattoir where he worked, and dumped the contents into the grinding pit. It was where all the bits ended up that nobody wanted to eat. The bones and sinews and intestines, the less edible parts of the cows, sheep and horses which made their way here to be slaughtered for consumption. Tomorrow the men would return with their stone grinders, and break it all down into a gloopy mulch which was fit only for cheap meat pies, sometimes the staple for common-folk in winter._

_Three journeys it took, three sacks in total. And from that day forth, she had never eaten a meat pie again._

"Very inventive," Azazel said appreciatively. "I hope he didn't give anybody indigestion."

"Why did you make me remember that?" she asked, tears lining her eyes. It had brought back all the pain of Anne's death, which was barely tolerable on top of what she had already gone through with Clara.

"Because I have something I think you might want," he grinned. "Your papa's soul. It's in Hell, right now, waiting for you. I know how... unsatisfied... his death left you. He got off easy, after everything he put you and your poor sister through. I've been keeping him on ice, though, just for you. In Hell, death isn't permanent. You can bring somebody back however many times you like. You can kill your father until his screams finally satisfy that empty space inside you."

Something inside her leapt up, clutching at the thought of making her father suffer. He deserved nothing less than eternal torture. Finally, she would have justice for Anne and revenge for herself. Finally she could stop feeling like an empty shell, just going through the motions. Finally she could be a whole person again.

"If we do this," she said, and his eyes flickered with pleasure, "there is something else I want, too."

"Name it," he said, no hesitation or delay.

"The man who killed my friend Clara..."

"Lord Ballentyne, I believe."

"Yes. I want him, too. I want to kill him, and I want his soul to suffer. I want to use him as a warm-up, before I meet my father again." Azazel was right. This was something God could not give her. God only offered forgiveness, and she did not want forgiveness. She wanted revenge. She wanted it to feed the fire and sate the hunger within her. She wanted to punish anybody who had ever wronged her, who had ever crossed or spited her. And Azazel offered a way.

"Deal," he said. "Your papa's soul will be waiting for you in Hell, Lord Ballentyne will be kept safe until you're ready to send him downstairs, and after ten years of puppy-dogs and happiness with your belove–"

"No."

He looked surprised by the interruption. One of his eyebrows arched upwards. "No?"

"I don't want ten years of happiness, ten years of a perfect life. I don't deserve it. Thomas deserves more than a woman bound for Hell. It's better that he remembers me as I was, than as a monster in the making."

"How very noble," he sneered.

She smiled. "Besides, I think I've waited long enough. Every moment Lord Ballentyne is free is a moment I won't rest. I want to kill him slowly, and I want to kill him now. He's going to suffer so much before I send him to Hell, that he'll think he's already there."

"Now there's the daughter I've been looking for!" he said, happiness and pride in his yellow eyes. "Are you sure you want to go now? Ten years of happiness is something some people will sell their souls for. One of our briskest trades, in fact."

"I'm sure," she said. And for once in her life, she was. There were no nerves, no fear, no indecision. Her path was clear, now. Though she had closed the door to Heaven, she had opened a window to Hell. It was where she belonged, anyway.

o - o - o

It was known as _The Year of the Carnal Killer_. It started with the deaths of two prostitute, mere days apart. The first, a young woman called Clara, had been found beside the docks, her throat slit and her face beaten beyond recognition. The second was Clara's room-mate, Meg, whose body was found at the home of Sir Lamb by George Moore, two days after she failed to show up for work. There was no sign of Sir Lamb, or any of his house-servants. Stranger still, Meg's body appeared to have been torn to shreds by wild animals; huge canine footprints were found at the crime scene, but they led nowhere, apparently vanishing into thin air.

She was the last of the prostitutes to die, but not the last of the bodies to be found that year. The first was that of Lord Timothy Ballentyne, found dead at the gate of his estate the day before he was to have set sail for the Americas. His body was in such a terrible state that it could be identified only by the blood-soaked signet ring on his right hand, and by the birthmark on the top of his left thigh. He, too, appeared to have been torn to shreds, though there were no pawprints this time.

A dozen men all told were killed in London that year. The neighbours talked, the shop-keepers shook their heads and tsked over the gruesomeness of it all. That so many fine, upstanding members of the community should be taken by this killer in such short a time was a tragedy. That the Watch were never able to even name a suspect was even worse. _What would drive a man to kill others like that?_ they wondered. They were decent men, with nothing in common save the fact that they liked to pay for the services of a whore every now and again. That wasn't a crime worthy of death, was it?

But the memories of men are short. The year passed, winter gripped the city tightly before relinquishing it, and spring arrived. The local men, all thoughts of murders and dead prostitutes behind them, went into the woods of Kennington Park to build themselves an effigy. A Maypole was erected in the centre of the fields. Girls danced, tribute was given, and a Queen was crowned. Life continued with little traditions, and even though people didn't know _why_ they danced around the Maypole and gave tribute to a Green Man and crowned a virgin May Queen, they did it anyway. Because that's what they had always done, and it's what they always would do.

_- The End -_

* * *

_Author's Note: Thanks for reading, hope you've enjoyed this sojourn into the psyche of Meg. If, like me, you think about things a little too much (and if you're reading this, you probably __**do**__) then you've most likely realised that the demon we know isn't really named 'Meg.' Meg Masters was the name of the first host, and the chances of a demon named Meg possessing the body of a girl named Meg, are... well, let's just say that I can't suspend belief that far. However, Meg's the name we all know, so I went with it. If you know of any back-stories out there where she's not named 'Meg', let me know, because it would be an interesting comparison._

_I've realised my stories tend to end with death, or at least the threat of it hanging over somebody's head. It's not intentional, I promise. Not all of my stories will be this grim. I have to mention as well, I'm quite open to continuing this, and writing a another Meg-centric fic, since I had so much fun with her. What do you think? Would you be interested in reading more, at some point?_

_So, what next? Do you like Gabriel? Do you like humour? Come back in two weeks and I'll spin you a tale that's a little more light-hearted than anything I've written so far. Fair warning; it will be a cross-over. What am I crossing it with? You'll have to wait and see. Muahahahaha! *cough* sorry._


End file.
